Narutotachi Goes to Hogwarts!
by Yarochisai
Summary: An abandoned Harry Potter/Naruto Crossover with awful crackish humor. I have not updated since mid-2008. Please stop PMing me for updates. And don't bother reviewing either, because I'd feel bad if you kept reviewing for no reason.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Grand Entrance

Disclaimer in profile

Pairings: ((chosen by an earlier vote; those not mentioned and 'Coupled' with another cannon/OC were done so for convenience)) NaruHina, ShikaTema, NejiTen, and it's up to you to find out the rest of them, so just keep reading! XD

Hm... I guess I should also mention that some of the parts in the beginning are copied from out of the 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' book so that I didn't get too far offtopic during the whole thing. Okay, maybe not offtopic but... well, I like to have things 'aligned'. I even have a calender as to where I planned the timing for everything, which includes the dates for tasks other events in the fourth book.

-

"_I feel kinda outta place..._" Naruto informed his friends in their home language as he glanced around at the strangers around them. The majority of them were wearing flowery dresses and pointy hats. "_Anyone else feeling a bit left out?_"

"_If by left out, you mean we want to join them in their dresses, I'd say no_," Kiba said, rubbing his nose as they followed a man named Kōneriusu Fajji. Or, as the poor man kept on trying to get them to say, 'Cornelius Fudge'.

They followed the minister of magic up a seemingly endless flight of stairs when, finally, he led them to their seats—'them' being the Naruto's team, Shikamaru's team, Kiba's team, Neji's team, Gaara, and his siblings.

"_Harry Potter,"_ the minister said enthusiastically in English, shaking a finger in the direction of a green-eyed boy bearing a scar on his forehead and thick glasses, perfectly matching the description in the shinobi's mission files.

"Oh come on now, you know who he is..." Fudge said in a rather desperate voice. "Harry Potter, you know," he said to them. "The boy who lived, as in _the _Boy-Who-Lived! ...I suppose that's redundant and rather pointless since you don't seem to understand... _Har_ry _Pot_ter?"

The shinobi all looked around, with confused looks on their faces.

"Oh, I give up..." Fudge said, rubbing his temples. He turned to the wizards in the Top Box. "These are foreigners, taking in our ways. This whole area was originally reserved for the Bulgarian minister and his close and extended family, but there were complications and since he had the spare seats, the ruler of a village in Japan managed to convince him to give up the tickets freely for the cure to some poison... Anyway, this group is a convoy from the ruler of a Japanese wizard village. I'm not sure which on they're quite from... it's a bit complicated and there are many. Ah, I see Barty's house-elf is saving him a seat. Good job too, with _these_ foreign blighters cadging all the good seats."

The shinobi all exchanged annoying glances, possibly understanding the negative meaning of the word 'blighter'.

The shinobi stood still, knowing that they were being judged by the wizards. Their clothing were casual enough, keeping dark tones and not-too outrageous hues, like the other wizards who seemed to be attempting to imitate muggle-wear.

"In...t-ro...doshuns...?" a pale-eyed girl said. Fudge seemed absolutely delighted by this.

"Introductions! _Yes_!" Fudge said, excited by this new development, this being the first word of almost understandable English that he had heard them say _ever_. "I am Cornelius Fudge, minister of—"

"We no," a cross looking redhead said, as they all moved to take a seat. "Us, them."

"Ah, this is Harry Potter, Arthur Weasley, his son, and a friend."

"I'm not sure where my other children are, exactly..." Arthur said, only half-joking. He wasn't sure if he even _wanted_ to know what Fred and George were up to this time... Hopefully, it wouldn't involve _too_ much chaos...

"Yes, oh, and this is Percy," Fudge said. Percy seemed to have been annoyed that he was forgotten, and then even more so since he was added only as an afterthought. "Oh, and look, that's Lucius Malfoy and his family!"

Everyone looked up behind to see the family of blond purebloods.

"Cornelius," Lucius said to him. "I don't suppose you've met my wife, Narcissa, and my son, Draco?" ((A/N: I was tempted to type 'my son Malfoy', lol))

"How do you do? Please allow me to introduce the representatives of two wizard countries in the East, the...well, too many to name..."

"Good lord, Arthur..." Lucius Malfoy said, not really paying attention after spotting the balding redhead father of redheads. "What did you have to sell to get seats in the Top Box? Surely your house wouldn't have fetched this much? And—my, my, did you go and have another son when no one was looking? I thought you _only_ had seven children, not _eight_. And he looks quite a bit under the weather, with those bags under his eyes. Don't tell me you have so little food on the table that you have to stop feeding one of them? Not very well cared for, I see..."

'...I'll knock them off the stadium when no one's looking, dammit...' the baggy-eyed redhead in question said.

Even the Minister of Magic, as oblivious to the world as he always was, could sense the rising tension between the two pureblood families. "Ah, actually, this is one of the higher classed Japanese wizards from Japan," he said. "I suppose Ludo and I ought to go start the announcements..."

"I suppose that explains why he's dressed better than you," Lucius said smoothly. "Even _if_ it is only Muggle clothing..."

Lucius nodded sneeringly to Mr. Weasley and continued down the line to his seats. Draco shot Harry, Ron, and Hermione a contemptuous look, then settled himself between his mother and father.

The now defined 'baggy-eyed, finely dressed' redhead glanced down at his own clothing and turned over to face the larger boy sitting next to him wearing the face paint.

"_What_ is wrong with my clothes?" he hissed to the others in what Harry was _sure_ was very proper and grammatically correct angry English. The face paint-wearing representative didn't get a chance to answer.

"_Sonorus... TESTING, TESTING, CAN ALL OF YOU HEAR ME?"_

Several of the representatives shouted and jumped, some wincing and others even falling out of their seats.

"Wow..." Hermione said. "Japanese wizards. I heard wizards from Asia are really rare. I mean, there are plenty of Oriental wizards, but there aren't any wizard schools anywhere in Asia, so they're sent to wizarding schools outside of the country. But they stayed in their village, so I wonder what magic they know, if they even know any? Do you think they speak English?"

"Of course not," Ron said.

"Uh, Ron?" Harry began, though his friend didn't seem to hear him and continued talking as if these foreigners weren't there.

"If they had, they would've introduced themselves when the minister told them too," he continued.

"But—" Harry said. He had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that Ron was going to do something incredibly stupid...

"Look, look..." the Weasley said, turning towards the Japanese wizards.

_This did not bode well._

"Hey losers! You're dressed like muggles and you look funny doing it and you really don't look Japanese and you look stupid and—!"

"Ron!" Hermione hit him angrily. "Stop that!"

"_Geh_?"

The red-haired Japanese wizard spun around with a gleam in his eye.

"_What_," he said in a low voice, grabbing Ron by the front of the shirt, "exactly is wrong with my clothing?"

Ron let out a small yelp and fell backwards and away from him.

"Uh...nothing!" Ron said, jumping back

"Oi, they speak English!" the Weasley hissed loudly to his friends, leaning away from the Japanese as if a few extra inches of space would make a difference if _every single one _of the Japanese wizards suddenly decided to jump him. Harry sighed. Luckily, the boy with the face paint and a girl with her hair worn in four hair ties had the redhead held back.

"I am very sorry about my stupid friend!" Hermione said loudly.

The pink-haired girl smiled and turned around too. "We are very sorry for you have a stupid friend too."

"You mean, we are very sorry about your stupid friend too," a boy sitting a few people away from her corrected. He paused, looking back at the fan-girl and the face paint-boy as they struggled to stop the redhead from strangling Ron. "...And we're also sorry for Gaara."

"So...wait...all of you speak English?" Hermione asked.

"I picked up a few phrases at the inn we're staying at," the boy said lazily. "But not all of us—"

The blond boy sitting next to the pink haired girl turned around and poked the lazy looking boy. "_Kakashi-sensei wa doko desu ka_?" (1) he said in Japanese.

They looked at the boy who wore his hair in a spiky ponytail. "That's Naruto. He's just wondering where our…teacher is. His teacher, actually."

Naruto looked at them as if he had suddenly seen them. "_Ore wa Uzumaki Naruto da_." (2)

"And, uh...Naruto just reintroduced himself. I am Shikamaru Nara," the one who looked tired said.

"And I am Haruno Sakura," the pink haired girl added after him.

"Sakura Haruno, you mean," Shikamaru said. "Here, their surnames go last."

She paused for a moment, as if to make sure she remembered that bit of information for the rest of her life. "I am Sakura Haruno," she amended with a proud nod.

"That is Sasuke Uchiha," Shikamaru said. "Tenten, Neji, and Lee are sitting over there. Gaara is one that Temari and Kankurou are holding back from Ron. Temari is his sister, and Kankurou is his brother, by the way. Ino is the insufferable blond sitting next to Sasuke. This is my friend Chouji, and Kiba is the one with the huge dog, Akamaru. Shino is the one you can't really see. Hinata is the girl sitting between them. My suggestion is that you stay away from her. She's nice, but if Neji sees you anywhere near her and assumes that you're hitting on her, you'll disappear come morning."

"Why?" Ron asked. "Are they going out?"

Shikamaru looked at Ron as if he was something worse than an idiot. Like a disgusting idiot.

"They're _cousins_," he said, showing a greater reaction to this than anything else combined. "And he just happens to have become somewhat overprotective to his... cousins. A complete turnaround, I guess."

"Eh?"

"There was a bit of a one-sided rivalry between him and his cousin's family."

"So," Hermione said, changing the subject, "you learned all this English just from picking up words from the inn you were staying at? You learn _very_ quickly."

"Not as quick as you think. It took several weeks of looking through textbooks and magazines, and I still make mistakes," he said.

"Well I haven't heard any so far," she said.

"We've known you for five minutes. 'So far' is not a long time. Or distance." He paused. "...English sucks," he muttered, a little confused.

"You're still, um, very good," Hermione said to him, completely astounded. A girl shouted for their attention.

"Shika-kun!" the girl named Temari hollered over the crowd, waving for him to come over. "Here!" Shikamaru sighed and stood up, but wasn't sure whether he should risk sitting within five feet of her brothers, who seemed to be glaring daggers at him.

"_Ano...iie kekko desu_," (4) he muttered. No thanks.

Temari, with a slightly bewildered look on her face, followed Shikamaru's eyes and found her protective brothers, watching him watch her watch them. They realized that Temari spotted them silently threatening the life of her boyfriend and immediately looked to the quidditch field, pretending to be impressed by the...bigness of it.

She picked up her large fan from beneath the seats and whacked Kankurou out of his own seat.

"Stop that," she said to Gaara and Kankurou, who muttered darkly at his younger sister. She's a _monster._

And so Temari picked up her fan and moved to Shikamaru's side, glaring at her brothers the whole time.

Half of the people nearby jumped when what seemed to be a smoke bomb went off in the seats. A silver-haired man with half of his face covered by a mask and a fourth of it covered by a metal band on a cloth appeared once the smoke cleared away.

"You're late!" Sakura shouted.

"Sorry," he said. "I got lost on the road of life." He took out an orange book and sat down at the first seat available.

"This is Hatake Kakashi," Shikamaru muttered as Temari seated herself next to him. "That's his opening line."

Harry grinned. This must be Kakashi. He looked over the man's shoulder at his book. It was a comic book. With Japanese characters and very detailed pictures of—WHOA!

"Oh yes," Kakashi said, looking up as if remembering something. "I come bearing gifts." From a large bag (where did it come from!), he pulled out several Omnioculars for his students.

"_Awesome_!" Naruto cried, zooming in on some random wizard across the stadium. "Gyahahaa! Hinata! Here!"

The dark haired girl turned to the blond. "Y-yes?"

"Y-yaaaeeez?" Naruto repeated, not clearly understanding her. He beckoned for her to look through his Omnioculars. She did and sighed, turning red at her friend's lack of maturity.

"Naruto-kun, that is—"

Sakura pulled on Naruto's Omnioculars (effectively strangling the boy) and looked at what he was watching.

"Nasty!" Sakura said, releasing the Omnioculars that had been wrapped around the neck so she could smack him upside the head.

"What?" Harry asked. She looked up at him with shocking white eyes.

"Um...there is a...a man who is... scratching himself... Down there..." she said, turning even redder. Hinata pointed at him through her own Omnioculars. Ron immediately looked and laughed out loud.

"It's the same guy who was picking his boogers!" he said, laughing uproariously. "Ugh, now he's scratching his face! Gross!"

"Unsanitary!" Sakura exclaimed with a disgusted look on her face.

"Your eyes," Hermione said suddenly to Hinata. "How can you see?"

Hinata didn't know how to respond to his question. "Um... I... open my eyes... and I look... and I see?"

"...Nevermind," Hermione said, before making another attempt at a stable conversation. "So what kind of magic do you use in Japan?"

"Um... by magic...you mean...?" she said, before the boy with a huge wolfish dog cut her off.

"This kind!" Kiba said, showing Ron a deck of playing cards. "Pick one!" he ordered.

"Er... okaaay..." Ron said uncertainly, not sure if this was some sort of practical joke. He pulled out a card.

"Don't show," he said with a fanged grin. "Gimme card."

Ron handed him the card, which happened to be an eight of diamonds.

"Is it..." Kiba began.

'Not that it mattered,' Harry mused when, without even shuffling the cards, Kiba placed the card on top of the deck, and then immediately picked it up off the deck of cards.

"..._this_ _one_!" he said with an extremely proud look on his face.

Everyone was silent for a moment as the Golden Trio took this all in.

'_That's silly! He didn't even mix that card into the deck!_' Hermione thought indignantly at how Kiba had destroyed a perfectly good muggle magic trick.

'_That's not really how the trick works,_' Harry thought. '_...Is it?_'

'_That... that's amazing!_' Ron thought, amazed.

Of course, Kiba and Naruto burst out laughing, much to Ron's confusion.

"Seriously," Hermione said, looking a bit annoyed at the constantly changing subjects. "What kind of magic do you guys do?"

"The same as you?" Sakura said.

"You're not sure?"

"_Wait a minute_," Shikamaru said suddenly, pointing a finger in Harry's face, much to his annoyance. "You're, um... you're...that guy. That kid who defeated Voldemort."

The nearby wizards (including Ron and Mr. Weasley) winced and glared at Shikamaru at the same time. A pretty interesting sight. "I mean, You-Know-Who. Harry...Potter, right? That's what Chocolate called you too."

Ugh, more fans...?

"Cool, read something about you a few weeks ago," Shikamaru said, nodding before turning back to Temari, whom the Golden Trio had assumed was his girlfriend, considering the amount of... public display of affection they were sharing with the public.

'Cool'? Just _cool?_ The boy who defeated the Dark Lord was hardly being regarded as some celebrity by these people and was being treated as if he were just any other kid.

_Cool_.

"Er, I don't think anyone did anything in a magazine article about me recently," Harry said.

"No, but I've been reading almost everything that's happened for the past several years and more," Shikamaru said, looking a bit cross at that. "About twelve years worth of newspapers."

"Oh, what newspaper did you read?"

"Your _Daily Prophet_. People here really idolize you, though they seem to leave out Ron and Hermione quite often. I've been skimming through all of the _Daily Prophet's_ articles from the last twelve years these past weeks."

"That's a bit much isn't it?" Hermione asked.

"Some things were interesting. A bit ironic how some Sirius Black escaped from the so-called worst prison ever without even needing those wands you completely depend on. Bad security if you ask me."

Harry gulped nervously at the mentioning of his godfather.

"Yeah. I don't suppose you know any translation spell do you?"

"No, that's too advanced for us," Hermione admitted.

"Ah, dang. Because Naruto's an idiot. He doesn't want to spend his time learning English, unlike the rest of us...Oh, it's starting..."

"Hello, all!" Fred said. He and his brother were returning from their exploration of the stadium.

"Ah, more people!" George said heartily. "The match is about to start!"

"LADIES AND GENTLEMAN...WELCOME! WELCOME TO THE FINALS OF THE FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SECOND QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP!" Ludo said loudly, now comfortable situated in his seat next to Fudge.

The Japanese wizards winced and jumped slightly in their seats when Bagman shouted and when the spectators screamed and clapped. Thousands of flags waved in every which direction, a myriad of green and red. Kind of like Christmas.

The huge blackboard opposite to them was wiped clear of its last message (Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans—A Risk With Every Mouthful!) and now showed BULGARIA: 0; IRELAND: 0.

"AND NOW, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE...THE BULGARIAN NATIONAL TEAM MASCOTS!"

The right hand side of the stands, which was a solid block of scarlet, roared its approval.

"I wonder what they've got," Mr. Weasley said, leaning forward in his seat. "Ah!" He suddenly whipped off his glasses and polished them hurriedly in his robes.

"Huh?"

"_Veela_!"

"What are veel—?" Harry tried to asked, but a hundred of them were now gliding out onto the field and Harry's question was answered. They were women, and the most beautiful women he had ever seen...excepted that they weren't—they couldn't be—human. This puzzled Harry for a moment while he tried to guess what exactly they could be; what could make their skin shine moonlight like that, or their white-gold hair fan out behind them without wind...but then the music started, and Harry stopped worrying about them not being human. In fact, he stopped worrying about anything at all.

As the veela danced, half-formed thoughts began running through his mind. He wanted to—no, _needed_ to do something impressive. Maybe he could jump from the box into the stadium? Or—?

"Harry, what are you doing?" Hermione asked. The music stopped. Harry blinked, confused, and found himself standing up with one of his legs resting on the wall of the box. Ron was frozen in a position as though he were about to dive from a springboard. Ino looked annoyed, crossing her arms and looking rather irritated at the lack of attention that she was not receiving, and Temari was furious.

Shikamaru knew what was coming at him. His eyes narrowed slightly. "How troublesome..."

She literally threw the poor boy into the crowd in front of them. Even Kakashi found himself blushing, having met the real version of Junko-chan from _Icha Icha Paradise_ (with clothes though). Naruto drooling, and Hinata was turning red. (Was this what it took to grab Naruto's attention?)

Lee had fires in his eyes, unnerving several nearby wizards. They inched away from him. Sasuke had sort of this stunned look on his face, and Sakura felt offended. Kankurou and Gaara were still glaring at Shikamaru, who was currently scrambling back to his seat to apologize to his slave driver—ahem, girlfriend. Shino...was showing no signs of life in any way, shape, or form. He might have passed out.

After the veela retreated and stopped dancing, all of the guys attempted to regain their indifferent composure (and failed to do so).

"Idiot boys," Tenten muttered darkly, glaring metaphorical daggers at Neji.

"Uh, hey, why didn't Sasuke, Gaara, and Shino try to jump off or anything?" Ron asked.

"Well, Sasuke has been resisting girls since he was three," Shikamaru guessed. "Gaara is...Gaara, and I'm pretty sure he has something in him that screws everything out of proportion anyway, with his whole 'hate the world and love myself' thing going on. Though I heard he's been repaired when Naruto headbutted him. I'm pretty sure it must have been one hell of a concussion for both of them... And as for Shino...? Well, who knows what's going on in his head."

"Maybe it's the sunglasses?" Hermione suggested.

"Maybe he's sleeping," Ron said. "I mean, he hasn't moved for the last thirty minutes. And is he even _breathing_?"

"Shino's probably still alive..." Kiba said. "He's usually like that."

"AND NOW," Ludo Bagman roared, "KINDLY PUT YOUR WANDS IN THE AIR...FOR THE IRISH NATIONAL TEAM MASCOTS!"

A great green and gold comet zoomed into the stadium, making a lap around it, and then splitting in two, towards each of the goal posts. Suddenly, a large rainbow arced across the field. As it faded away, the balls of light reunited and merged, forming a great shimmering shamrock that soared above them. And from that shamrock, a golden rain began to fall.

"Gold!" Kiba cried, jumping out of his seat to catch the falling gold rain. "I'm liking these guys."

The great big shamrock disintegrated and became a huge swarm of leprechauns.

"I didn't know those things existed..." Shikamaru muttered, rubbing his head. Temari still looked annoyed with him and Gaara and Kankurou were still glaring, but at least he wasn't getting beat up.

"You don't have magical creatures in Japan?" Ron asked.

"Well..." he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "We usually don't count little people as 'creatures from our native land'..."

"Plus," Naruto said, "our monsters are much huger!" ((A/N: I was surprised to find out that huger really was a word just now...))

Hearing this, Shikamaru shot Naruto a glare. They weren't supposed to draw attention to where they were from...

"Really?" Hermione said, suddenly interested. "What kinds do you have? And where in Japan are you from?"

"Gyaah!" Shikamaru shouted and jumped up in his seat when he dropped his drink—hot coffee—into his own lap.

"Are you alright?" Harry asked.

"Lap burning, do I look it?" he said, quickly, taking napkins to clean off his pants, since the others couldn't do much to help except hand him the napkins. It would be very awkward if they tried.

Bagman introduced the team players as they shot out into the field. Naruto laughed.

"Yes, Naruto, they fly on broomsticks," Sakura sighed exasperatedly. "Get over it. We have already had a good laugh about it."

Ron made a face. Dissing broomsticks! How dare they!

"What's really funny is how they're all wearing robes and riding brooms," Sasuke said, one of the first things he had said all night. "They should know we see their 'knickers'... (knickers, feh...) with our omogulars."

"Omnioculars," Shikamaru corrected.

"I wasn't talking to you, Nara."

"Then who was it you were talking to?"

"Myself, so shut up."

"Looklooklook!" Ron said excitedly like a little kid as KRUM flew onto the field. "It's Krum! It's Viktor Krum! That's him, that's him!" Harry zoomed in on Viktor Krum. He was thin, dark eyed, and sallow-skinned, with a large curved nose and thick black eyebrows.

As sad as it was to say, the first thing Harry thought when he saw him was '_Good god, it's a giant overgrown bird of prey…_' The man looked much older and more mature than he had thought. This guy was only eighteen?

And the game began. Four balls burst into the air—a red ball, two black ones, and a tiny gold one that was difficult to keep track of. Kakashi pointed out some of the things about the game.

"The red one is called a Quaffle," he said. "Throw it in a hoop, get ten points. The two black ones are Beaters—no, Bludgers. The Bludgers knock the players off the broomsticks. Beaters beat the bludgers. And...hm, the gold one with wings is a Snitch."

"Like a spy?" Temari asked the silver-haired man.

"...No, like a little gold ball with wings. You catch it, get one-hundred fifty points, and end the game. Usually if you catch if you win. The Keeper is the goalkeeper. The Beater hits the Bludger. The Chaser scores the Quaffle. The Seeker finds and catches the Snitch."

Within the first ten minutes, the game was thirty to zero, in Ireland's favor. The match got faster, and more brutal. The Bulgarian Beaters were whacking the Bludgers as fiercely as possible at the Irish Chasers.

Finally, the Bulgarians scored their first goal.

"Fingers in your ears!" Mr. Weasley said, as the veela danced in celebration. Harry screwed up his eyes and waited several moments. The veela stopped dancing, although Tenten had tied Neji to the chair. It seemed that he did not look away in time or something.

"Fool!" Mr. Weasley groaned as Viktor Krum feinted, tricking Aiden Lynch into crashing into the ground.

"He'll be okay," Charlie said reassuringly to Ginny who looked horrified. "He only got ploughed."

"Yeah, he _only_ got his face smashed in. No harm at all," Temari joked, which didn't help ease the redhaired girl's terror at all.

There were so many penalties in this game. The leprechauns taunted the veela until…they lost control of their temper. Instead of dancing, they launched themselves across the field and began throwing what appeared to be fireballs at the leprechauns.

They weren't even remotely beautiful now. Their faces were elongating into sharp, cruel-beaked bird heads, and long scaly wings burst from their shoulders. All men in the stadium fell over at the sight. These beautiful human goddesses had become so disgusting in the blink of an eye! Oh the horror!

"And that is why you never go for looks alone," Mr. Weasley yelled over the tumult of the crowd below.

Ministry wizards attempted to separate the leprechauns and the veela with little success. Meanwhile, Ireland scored once again. Then, Krum hit a Bludger with his face.

"...He's not supposed to be a beater..." Kiba said thoughtfully.

There was a deafening groan from the crowd. His nose looked broken, and there was blood everywhere. The Irish Seeker suddenly went into a dive, but Krum was on his tail. How could he see through all the blood?

But as Krum caught up, Lynch ran right into the ground a second time. Someone in the crowd had been thrown out of the stands with what appeared to be a thin tendril of sand. Naruto groaned and 'oohed' at the sight of the beat-up Irish seeker, though Gaara looked rather pleased with himself.

The Irish Seeker was immediately stampeded by a horde of angry veela. ((A/N: XD PWNED!))

Shikamaru shuddered. Scary 'women' things...

Krum, his red robes shining with the blood from his nose, held the gold Snitch in his hand. The scoreboard flashed.

Bulgaria: 160

Ireland: 170

"IRELAND WINS!" Bagman shouted. "KRUM CAUGHT THE SNITCH, BUT IRELAND WINS! GOOD LORD, I DON'T THINK ANYONE WAS SUSPECTING THAT. HAHA, LET'S HAVE A REALLY LOUD HAND FOR THESE VERY GALLANT LOSERS!"

It was hard to see the players below with the leprechauns gleefully zooming around the field. The Ireland players were dancing happily in a shower of gold from their mascots. Flags waved all over the stadium and the Irish national anthem was being played. However, nearby, the Bulgarian quidditch team was much less festive, for obvious reasons. Krum was as surly as ever, and his teammates were shaking their heads dejectedly.

"Well," Sakura said logically, annoyed by the Bulgarian players' disappointment, "they can't really blame that Krum guy for catching the Snitch when they were behind. One hundred and sixty points behind! I mean, maybe if they had done a better job of scoring some points of their own and blocking the other team's seeker—"

"Chaser," Kakashi corrected gently.

"Chaser," she fixed, "then maybe they wouldn't have lost."

"I guess you a big Krum fan then, eh?" Ino said, elbowing her friend playfully. "You go play quidditch then, and leave Sasuke-kun for me!"

"I don't like Krum!" she said. "Quidditch!"

"You!" they heard Cornelius shout from behind them. "You can all speak English! And you've been letting me mime everything all day!"

"And it was _hilarious_," Ino said casually, giving Fudge her best 'love-me-I'm-innocent' smile. She clenched her hands into a fist behind her. "Now, won't you show us to our camp, Mr. Chocolate?"

"I'll show you your camp..." both Fudge _and_ Ron said at the same time, looking slightly dazed. Ino turned red, as if trying to hold in her laughter, though Ron's two friends were completely confused by their friend's odd behavior.

"A funny thing..." Mr. Weasley said thoughtfully as the Japanese left and his son recovered from his mysterious brainwashing.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"I just never even heard the minister mentioning the Japanese. I didn't think that Japan had wizards. I always thought it was...oh, never mind. I don't think children so young could be one of _them_." Mr. Weasley laughed. "Haha, just a silly sudden thought. They certainly look like muggles, don't they?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "They do." Now that he thought about it, there _was_ something rather odd about these people. Their reactions to magic, mainly...

"Don't tell your mother that you've been gambling," Mr. Weasley said to Fred and George later that night.

"Don't worry Dad," Fred said gleefully. "We've got big plans for this money, and we don't plan on getting it confiscated."

Mr. Weasley frowned at them. He opened his mouth, about to ask them what their plans where, but shook his head, changing his mind.

He'd rather not know.

People everywhere were singing and celebrating. Everyone kept on urging Harry, 'just one more drink!' Sure, a cup of hot cocoa never hurt, then again... it _did_ when you were with Fred and George, since you always had to make sure they didn't mix anything a little extra in it. It was some time about three in the morning when Harry dozed off.

"Get up! Ron—Harry—come on now, get up, this is urgent!"

Harry jerked up, looking around. Something was wrong. The noises in the campsite were no longer joyful shouting and celebration. The singing had stopped, and he could hear shrieks and the sound of people running about frantically in the dark. It was an odd change from the joyful crowd to frenzied wizards. How long was he asleep? It felt like only a few minutes but Harry could tell it was much later.

He stood up and went into the tent to change clothes, but Mr. Weasley shook his head.

"Pajamas or jeans, it doesn't matter. There's no time, Harry—just grab a jacket and get outside fast!"

Harry did as he was told and hurried out of the ten, with Ron following right behind him. By the light of the few fires that were still burning, he could see people running away into the woods, fleeing something that was emitting odd flashes of light and noises like gunfire. Loud jeering, roars of laughter, and drunken yells were drifting toward them. And then there was a burst of green light, which light up the scene of chaos.

A large crowd of wizards, tightly packed and moving together, with their wands pointed skywards, was marching slowly across the field. Harry squinted at them. They didn't seem to have faces. Then he realized that their heads were hooded and their faces masked. High above them, floating along in midair, four struggling figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes. It was as though the masked wizards on the ground were puppeteers, and the people above them were marionettes operated by invisible strings that rose from the wands into the air. Two of the figures were very small.

More wizards were joining the marching group, laughing and pointing up at the floating bodies. Tents crumpled and fell as the marching crowd swelled. Once of twice, Harry saw one of the marchers blast a tent out of his way with his wand. Several caught fire, and the screaming grew louder.

"That's sick," Ron muttered, watching the smallest muggle child begin the spin like a top and the wife get flipped upside down as she desperately tried to cover herself. "That's really just sick..."

Hermione and Ginny came hurrying toward them, pulling coats over their nightdresses, with Mr. Weasley right behind them. At the same time, Bill, Charlie, and Percy emerged from the boys' tent, fully dressed, with their sleeves rolled up and their wands out.

"We're going to help the Ministry!" Mr. Weasley shouted over all the noise, rolling up his own sleeves. "You lot—get into the woods, and _stick together_. I'll come fetch you when we've sorted this out!"

Bill, Charlie, and Percy were already sprinting away towards the oncoming marchers; Mr. Weasley tore after them. Ministry wizards were dashing every direction toward the source of the trouble. The crowd beneath the Roberts family was getting closer.

"C'mon," Fred said, grabbing Ginny's hand and starting to pull her toward the woods. George, Harry, Ron, and Hermione followed them. They all looked back as they reached the trees. The crowd beneath the Roberts family was larger than ever; they could see the Ministry wizards trying to get through it to the hooded wizards in the center, but they were having great difficulty. It looked as though they were scared to perform any spell that might make the Roberts family fall.

The colored lanterns that had lit the path to the stadium had been extinguished. With the sudden absence of light, everyone panicked (even more so than they already were). Dark figures were blundering though the trees; children were crying for their parents, anxious shouts and panicked voices were reverberating around them in the cold night air. Harry felt himself being pushed all around by people with faces he couldn't see. The ground, mostly sand from the Quidditch arena, perhaps, shook beneath their feet, and the wind blew suddenly and violently for a brief moment. They all braced themselves against the trees. What was that?

"Argh!"

"Are you okay, Ron?" Hermione asked him.

"Yeah, I just tripped on a tree root when the ground moved," Ron said, picking himself up off the ground.

"With feet that large, it must be hard not to," a voice said. A familiar platinum haired boy was standing alone nearby, leaning against a tree, looking utterly relaxed. His arms folded, he seemed to have been watching the scene at the campsite through a gap in the trees.

"Malfoy!" Harry growled.

"Harry!" Malfoy shouted back mockingly.

"And Lee!" another voice said. Lee? Everyone turned around to see the boy in relatively tight green pants and a brighter green vest with orange leg warmers. Oh my god! They winced at the sight. And was that one of the Japanese wizards? "Konoha's Beautiful Blue Beast has arrived!"

((A/N: Obviously, this is where I stopped using the book for guidance... And I am completely aware of the fact that it's supposed to be 'green', but in the English manga, I think they made a mistake in translation (or did it on purpose) but they called Lee Blue. Anyway, it's just sorta to be funny with their lack of English skills))

"I see beast," Malfoy sneered dryly. "But I seem to have lost the beautiful and the blue." Secretly, everyone else agreed with that comment, not that they would ever admit it. They'd rather eat their own tongue than to ever admit to agreeing with Draco Malfoy.

Lee gave them a thumbs up sign. His teeth sparked. "Hello, Harry Potter and friends!" he said. "We were not properly introduced earlier. I am Rock Lee, chuunin of the Hidden Leaf Village! While speaking to Shikamaru, I learned that you defeated an all-powerful wizard as a toddler! I am impressed by your hard work and would like to train with you some occa—"

"_Silencio_!" Malfoy cried, pointing the wand at Rock Lee. He continued talking, not noticing his muteness. "Sorry, Potter, but your friend is irritating."

Ron shrugged, and Harry shook his head. They didn't really care, although Hermione looked irritated. Yet, she didn't even have time to reprimand him when Lee's reinforcements appeared.

"That was our teammate you just zapped," Neji said, appearing in a tree. Tenten landed next to him. ((Anyone reminded of a pre-chuunin brawl in the Forest of Death...?)) They had also changed clothes, but it was much more pleasant to the eye than Lee's garments. Neji and Tenten wore garments that were much looser than Lee's. Neji's outfit was all white with the exception of a dark cloth (like a towel) that was tied around his waist like a tourist would do with their jackets in a hot climate. Tenten wore baggy black pants and a loose light pink shirt.

"Stupid wizards," she said. "You shouldn't mess with our kind."

"Eh?" Within a blink of an eye, Neji appeared in front of him and, with veins on his temple, he...poked him?

"What the hell was that?" Malfoy sneered.

"Hyuga taijutsu technique, wizard," Neji said coldly. Tenten disappeared for a moment and was suddenly standing behind Malfoy.

"What the heck?" The wand that he had was gone.

"There!" she said cheerfully. "Now you can't use your wand, _or_ any of your magic."

"Huh?" Malfoy searched himself for the missing wand. Psh, as if she would hide it on him! "That was my father's!"

"That is our teammate," Tenten said, as if he were an academy student. "And that is my Neji, hotter than Sasuke. And that is a tree. We just jumped from it. And—"

"He gets the point, Tenten," Neji said.

"Mudbloods." Malfoy left.

"Civilian!" Tenten yelled back. She went over to Lee, who was still talking silently, and to Ron, Harry, and Hermione's surprise, she began shaking him violently. "Yo, Lee, snap out it!"

He looked at her and mouthed silent words, not really realizing that he still couldn't speak.

"...Lee? I can't hear you." ...A miracle!

('What on earth are you speaking of, Tenten? I am speaking loud and clear!')

"Lee's been hit by Malfoy's Silencing charm," Hermione explained.

"Is that so...?" Neji said. They didn't say anything for a moment, although each had the same idea in their mind. "Then...our objective is clear."

"Yeah!" Tenten said.

('To reverse the jutsu, we must…')

"Kill the Malfoy!" they shouted together as if it were some sort of rallying cry. Tenten and Lee pumped their fists in the air and ran off, with Neji following after them, refusing to do anything so immature. Nevertheless, he ran after them as well.

Before Hermione, Harry, and Ron could say anything, the three ninjas disappeared. They had a sick feeling in the bottom of their stomachs.

"Uh oh..." Ron bit his lip, nervously trading glances with his two friends.

"This...can't be good," Hermione said.

Despite their rivalry, Harry just prayed that Malfoy would last the night. He'd hate to be the cause of a very painful death, even if it was a pureblood fanatics. "Let's...let's just pretend nothing happened," Harry said. They left, running.

-

(1) Where is the Kakashi-sensei? I think that's right…  
(2) I'm Uzumaki Naruto.  
(3) How troublesome or something like that...  
(4) No thank you  
(5) What?

**My Thinking Corner**

Alright... I don't really have much to say.

My list of favorite kinds of reviews from least favorite to favorite:   
Short  
Medium  
Long  
Epic

That's all there is to me. I enjoy reviews just going 'update or die' (... okay, maybe not the die part, but it's nice to know you like this story enough to threaten the writer). I despise one word flames. And if you actually take the time to write a medium length review, whether it's purely flattery or blunt criticism (Blunt! _Not_ rude!), then I like it. My favorites would be the huge reviews that go 'oooh,

Uh... I'll be right back, I think my pants are on backwards.

One word reviews going "update Constructive criticism is Please don't flame me if characters act out of OOC… By the way, I suppose the "Naruto-tachi Goes to Hogwarts!" doesn't fit, since they don't start off at Hogwarts. This is in Harry's fourth year. Sorry about the roughness or whatever. This is my first fic, so I'm not used to this stuff. And uh…yeah. I did something weird and ended up deleting the original one. I edited all the spelling mistakes, but I won't be able to make it more detailed until the weekend. Oh, and please R&R. Feel free to leave some constructive criticism, but no flames. They make me feel bad...T-T))


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Great Wizard Hunt—Heading to Hogwarts

Pairings: Naruto X Hinata, Shikamaru X Temari, Neji X Tenten, and possibly more to come. Request pairings in your posts.

**Demon mindspeaking**  
Host mindspeaking  
"Normal speaking"  
"_Talking in another language_"  
'Thinking'  
"..." silence

* * *

"So…" Kakashi said, once they were back at the camp that Fudge left them at. He was still reading _Icha Icha Paradise_. "You got a good look at the kid, yeah?" 

"Hn…" Shikamaru frowned. This was too troublesome. It seemed that each year this Harry Potter boy had returned to Hogwarts, he nearly got himself killed. Curiosity killed the cat, but that was only because the cat was stupid. Hopefully Harry wasn't stupid. He wasn't stupid, right? Wait, yeah he was. According to the information Dumbledore had given him it was his friend Hermione Granger who was the smart one of the group. Nope, on a range of smartest fo stupidest, it went from Hermione to Harry to Ron. The Weasley twins that he had heard so much about where somewhere either in front of Hermione or behind Ron. He could deduct from the information he had recieved that, like Naruto, they were geniuses when it came to creativity, but had the common sense of an infant.

"What you think?" Temari asked Shikamaru.

"This mission…didn't seem too troublesome before when I first heard about it, but it is."

"Yes, because that makes total sense," Sakura said sarcastically. "Come on, how much information could you have gotten from this one meeting anyway?"

"Well, the whole group obviously disliked those Malfoys. You can tell just by being in the same room with them. The moment the Malfoy family arrived, hackles were raised and everyone was on the defense. The Malfoys are purebloods, which basically means they're inbred and are probably obsessed with keeping it that way. They're probably prejudiced and close minded, judging from the alleged 'conversation' they had with Harry and his friends. And since Mr. Weasley is poor and Harry Potter most definitely is not, from all of this, I can determine he is not judgmental and haughty when it comes to choosing his friends. Either that or that he has a reason that I can not understand to befriend the poor. of course, Weasleys do breed like dogs. They don't have a child. They have a litter of kids. Nonstop. _Anyway_, the fact that his hair is brushed partly to the side, although not obvious, shows that he's hiding his trademark 'lightning-shaped scar', which means that he either has had too much attention his whole life, or is not used to it. Or maybe he's just naturally... untidy. But the fact that he's a stick shows that he's probably not fed as well as most kids his age, therefore I am assuming it could be both. And, according to the information given to us, he has a knack for getting into tight spots and barely making it out alive."

"You…use to many big words of English," Temari moaned.

"I understood most of it!" Sakura said proudly. Naruto, the only one of them with a vocabulary of three English words, was ignoring the conversation and waiting silently for three minutes. Listening to this language gave him a headache.

"Yeah, great," Shikamaru said. "His girl friend Hermione is the smart one who is more sensible about things. The boy friend Ron is the stupider one, it seems."

"It's rude to talk about work at dinner!" Ino said, heartily placing homemade bento boxes on the table. "Food!"

Naruto grinned. The hated three-minute wait for ramen was over! "Ramen!" he said.

They all sat inside the tent, where it may have been too small on the outside, but there was plenty of space on the inside, complete with a small living room, two kotatsu (1) pushed together in their mini-kitchen, and a closet with their futons. Oddly enough, it reminded Naruto of a larger version of his own apartment.

"_Yeah, so Chocolate's like, they work right under the Kazekage! I mean, if you're trying to impress people, at least get your facts straight_!" Kankurou snorted. "_He _is_ the Kazekage, idiot! And then he does all these hand-waving things as if we don't get what's going on. Well, Naruto doesn't, but still, it's like we have our own personal mime_!"

"_Yeah, and then they're all wearing flowery dresses and suits. What's up with that_?" Naruto asked. "_Half the guys here are crossdressers_!"

"_Hey Ino_," Kiba said. "_Just wondering, but you don't happen to be part veela do you? I mean, you're not that pretty, but you sure can turn vicious and gross like a rabid chicken when_—"

Ino decked him, knocking him across the room. Impressive, as she had not even been trained by Tsunade.

Almost everyone was laughing and just having a good time. They ate, drank, and talked until…well nobody knew what time it was. Oddly enough, Gaara mused, everyone was falling asleep like dominos, one person after another. It didn't really take long until he was the only one left awake. Spotting a bright orange object that was not Naruto, Gaara stood up and took a better look at it. It was a book. The one that that silver haired jounin was always reading.

He picked up the manga ((I think it's a manga...)) and opened a page. ...Stupid, useless trash. Maybe he should get one for Kankurou, he seemed to like that kind of stuff. Nothing but naked girls. He frowned. Naked girls—no! Kages do not waste their time thinking about romance or porn!

He lounged around this 'Wizard tent', doing nothing in general—looking around at the inside and outside and wondering 'what the hell?'

Something moved inside the tent. Gaara frowned and looked inside. Rock Lee was awake, standing up. As he walked towards Gaara, he swaggered side to side. Gaara backed away warily, and a trail of sand gathering towards him protectively. With a smile, Lee went up close to him and…walked right past him. Gaara almost audibly sighed in relief; Lee wasn't the type of person to hold grudges anyway, and his legs were perfectly/almost normal too. No, Gaara was just being paranoid. Lee was just...sleepwalking. Yes. Sleepwalking. Wait…

"_Haha, you looked so freaked out when Lee was coming at you_," a voice said. Gaara looked at the source and found Tenten, sitting next to a sleeping Neji. "_What, 'fraid he's gonna atack you_?"

"_If I could beat him while he's awake, I could beat him in his sleep_."

"_I don't know about that_," Tenten said, "_It's like saying, 'if I can beat him while he's sober, there's no way in hell he'll beat me while he's drunk'. Believe me, Neji thought Gai was joking when he told us about Lee's 'Drunk Fu'. Anyway, be glad all he does now is sleepwalk. He used to sleepfight, sleepeat, sleepdrink, and sleep train. It was crazy. And he nearly killed himself each time he tried to eat and drink in his sleep_."

"_…It would explain how he managed to stand up while he was unconscious when we fought in the chuunin exam preliminaries…_"

Tenten grinned. "_Yeah, Lee's crazy like that. Almost beat Neji_."

Neji frowned, but continued to sleep.

"_Sleepscowling, too? What do _you _do in your sleep?_"

"_Nothing. Just talk._"

"_You aren't asleep, are you…?_"

"_Perhaps_," Tenten said with a grin. "_I surprised Neji a few times answering some questions in my sleep. I could probably hold an entire conversation_!"

"_Right_…"

All of a sudden, there was a sound of screaming wizards.

"_Oh no! Is Lee sleepfighting again_!" Tenten cried. "_Neji, up_!" She pulled him.

"_No_…" he moaned, crawling further under the kotatsu.

"_Up, NOW_!" She tugged his ear and his hair.

"_Let go, or I'll kill y—hi, Tenten_," Neji said, facing his angry girlfriend.

"_Lee's missing and people are screaming and something's up_," Tenten said. She dragged Neji out of the tent. "_Gaara, if Lee comes back without us…I don't know, stick him in sand or something_!" She and Neji started running. "_And don't kill him_...!"

Gaara scowled. People were screaming, and there was still nothing to do. And then he smelled smoke. Looking around, he found that Naruto was still sleeping. It didn't _seem_ like he was cooking anything, but…where was that smell coming from?

Akamaru woke up, whimpered, and bit Kiba's arm firmly. He woke up, kicking his kotatsu, half of the room.

"_Hey, there's a fire somewhere_!" Kiba said. "_And...Gaara, you're doing nothing_."

Gaara ignored Kiba. He wasn't quite doing 'nothing'. He was gathering chakra and embedding it into nearly every single grain of sand in the ground.

"_Be quiet, mutt_," Kankurou said good-naturedly. "_This is our great and awesome 'Kazekage-sama' at work_."

"_Anyway, we ought to get those fires out_," Sakura said, still groggily rubbing her eyes. Just what time was it anyway? "_Hey, Kakashi-sensei and Shikamaru aren't awake_."

"_Shikamaru's awake, alright_," Temari said threateningly. She approached him and he jumped up, with the panicked look of a deer caught in the headlights of oncoming traffic.

"_Troublesome woman_," he muttered both before and after he was forcibly removed—or rather, violently tossed—from the tent. He sighed, backing away from Temari, who was looking rather irritated. "_Hn, Lee, Neji and Tenten are not present_," he said. "_Kiba, Hinata, Shino, and Naruto should be in the first group. Hinata sees far and heals. Shino's bugs track information, since Hyuga's don't see as well in the dark. Kiba can smell the presence and coming of people, Shino's back up, and Naruto will be the all-around back up with his doppelgangers. Sasuke, Sakura, Ino, Chouji, and I are in the other group. Sasuke has the Sharingan and his jutsus. Sakura has Tsunade's strength. Ino has her mind-penetrating techniques. Chouji is the best in terms of brute strength. And I'm _smart."

"_Those two Sasuke fanclub members in one group _with_ Sasuke_?" Temari asked, a bit annoyed Shikamaru didn't group her with him.

"_Sakura and Ino tend to keep each other on their toes. Sasuke's naturally gifted when it comes to tracking, fighting, and spying. Chouji and I are making sure no one—Sakura and Ino—don't kill each other. Besides, Chouji, Ino, and I worked together a lot, so we have a few more tricks than you all know of_," Shikamaru said. "_You, Temari, and your brothers are sticking together. You guys have most experience working together. Anyway, Gaara knows how to handle himself, and you can show all the wizards how weak the Sand are not_."

Temari grinned evilly.

"_What about Kakashi-sensei_?" Sakura asked.

"_We'll leave him here and show him what it's like to have people wait on you_!" Naruto said grinning.

"That doesn't make sense..." Kiba said. Kakashi wouldn't wait for them. He'd wake up, see he was alone, and go back to sleep under the kotatsu. "_But let's just leave him anyway_."

Gaara shrugged. He was still working, gathering all the sand within a three mile radius, just in case. They were lucky they were camping right next to the Quidditch stadium too. The other shinobi spread out, searching for Lee, Tenten, and Neji.

* * *

Kiba led the way, with Naruto following close behind. "_Outta the way, Naruto! I'm the leader of this group_!" 

"_No way_!" Naruto said. "_Then leader stays behind me! After all, we gotta 'keep the leader safe'_!"

"_Bite me_!" Kiba growled.

"_I did! In the chuunin preliminaries! You taste like dog in a parka_!"

"_Yet, you're the one that makes the most stinks_!"

"_Ano…t-t-this isn't the greatest time to fight_…" Hinata said.

"_Ah, look, a fire_," Shino said, pointing ahead.

"_And frenzied crowds_," Kiba said, snickering at wizards running left and right in their nightclothes. And sometimes a little bit less or nothing at all.

"_This is gonna be fun,_" Naruto said.

"_Are you kidding_?" Kiba snorted. "_We aren't even getting PAID for this_!"

* * *

'_This is my big chance to impress Sasuke-kun_!' Inner Sakura and Ino thought. '_I won't like Ino-pig/Forehead-san ruin our future!_' 

'_Women..._' Sasuke and Shikamaru thought. Chouji didn't say anything.

"_Oh look, a mob_," Chouji said in a thoughtful tone, pointing just ahead of them. And they hadn't even ran that far. Leaving the forest, you could almost see their tent, which was the direction that the mob was heading from. But…

"_Damn, the tent's on fire_!" Sasuke said.

"_Kakashi-sensei_!" Sakura gasped.

But the silver-haired man just left the tent, his hair mussed, his doped looking eyes half shut, and carrying his orange book. The Sand siblings who had barely left looked at Kakashi skeptically.

"_What_?" they heard Kakashi say. Sand shinobi pointed at the tent Kakashi had just left, which was burning quite nicely by now. "_Holy Mother of all kages! The tents on fire and the kids are gone_!"

"_In case you haven't noticed, there's a rampage of wizards going on_," Temari said.

"We're wasting our time," Shikamaru said. The crowd that had torched their tent was heading in their direction. "_Are we just going to stand here or are we going to take any action_?"

"_Shikamaru sounds like a leader_," Chouji said.

"We can't kill them," Shikamaru said. "Just stop them. The Ministry of Magic will come soon enough. They don't see us. Ino."

"_Got it_!" Ino said enthusiastically. She kneeled and put her index finger and thumbs together.

"_What is this_?" Sakura asked.

"_My dad and I found a better strategy for crowds_," Ino said mischeivously. "_Just look and see_." She grinned. "_Shintenshin no jutsu_!"

She passed out. Sasuke caught her as one of the masked men tore off his mask, stuck a wand up the nose of a man next to him. She swiftly kicked the feet out from under another man, only to make the sign again, pressing it against the figure of the one who had just falling.

The masked men, believing that he had just attacked a fellow conspirator, ganged up on that man. Meanwhile, Ino, in the body of the man who just fell, backed away. Soon, in another place in the crowd, she attacked another man, and escaped in a third person's body. She repeated this process several times until someone noticed the growing pattern. By then, Ino returned to her body.

"_While they're fighting each other, move it_!" Shikamaru said. Sasuke already had a thin thread out. Sakura slipped on her gloves and ran out.

"What about you three?" Sakura asked as Shikamaru, Chouji, and Ino stayed in the bush.

"_Too much effort_," Shikamaru said.

"_Um, what he said_," Chouji said.

"_I did my job, you do yours_," Ino said encouragingly. "_Show Sasuke that you're as strong as a man_!"

"_I will kill you after this_!" Sakura growled at Ino, running towards the wizards.

* * *

Gaara frowned at the sleepy Kakashi-sensei. No wonder Naruto's team was so strange. Their teacher must have been a bad influence on them. 

"Sirs!" a voice said. "Are you okay?" It was that red-haired man and two of his red-haired sons.

"Well, I wake up to find the tent on fire and I'm a bit singed, but otherwise I'm fine," Kakashi replied, scratching the back of his head. "Most of my kids ran off somewhere."

"Well _you're_ an adult! Help us round up these people and get them down!" Bill said. The red-heads (minus Gaara) began to run in the direction of the mob where Sakura and Sasuke were causing chaos. Gaara shrugged and was about to turn away. Sasuke and Sakura could handle it, despite the number they were up against.

Of course... for some odd reason, they probably wouldn't risk killing them. Gaara frowned when he thought about it. And it was true. Sasuke and Sakura wanted live prisoners, or something of that nature. They were only hitting them! And Sakura didn't seem to be using her newfound, abnormally dangerous superstrength.

Gaara sighed.

* * *

Shikamaru frowned. There _were_ people from the Ministry of Magic there. But they weren't attacking or helping Sasuke and Sakura. Instead, they were gawking at the sky like idiots. Shikamaru looked up and yelled at himself. No wonder they weren't taking action! Those people had captives! 

"_Sasuke, Sakura_!" Shikamaru said.

"_What_?" they asked, still trying their best not to accidentally kill anyone.

"_Shikamaru, you're ruining our cover. Everyone's looking_!" Ino said. It was true. The wizards causing all of these problems saw Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji.

Shikamaru ignored them. "_Stop it and leave! If you knock out a certain person, four civilians are going to fall_!" Shikamaru said. Urgh, he should have made sure there was nothing like this.

Sakura and Sasuke saw the figures in the dark night sky. Understanding his command, they headed back to the forest. Several of the other wizards followed. This probably meant that the ones controlling the bodies in the air were probably still in the larger crowd.

A spell hit Sakura as she fell down. She seemed unable to move.

"_Damn_." Shikamaru said. He extended his shadows. A simple task when everything was covered in darkness. But it wasn't needed.

As another spell, possibly more dangerous the the first that had hit her, followed, a body crawled out of the ground, similar to the ghost in a movie that everyone (Gaara) had watched prior to going West. _The Ring_? It was something like that. They had come to learn that Gaara liked scary, horror, and gory movies. But yes, with the body dragging itself out of the ground as the girl had left the Television Set, it got hit full-on by the blast.

Ino gasped as the figure that had saved Sakura was torn up. But Chouji actually dropped his bag of chips when the person's body rearranged itself from the fallen...sand.

"It's Gaara!" Ino said joyfully.

* * *

They were idiots. Complete and utter idiots. Running straight at the enemy, only to leave? Kankurou pointed at the sky and showed Gaara that there were hostages. But Kankurou knew what to do. 

He attached chakra threads to the hostages in the air. It wasn't quite enough, as perhaps about four other wizards still had a hold on them, but it was enough slowly drag them out of the air. It was like a game of tug-of-war. It was probably uncomfortable for those being pulled down, but now that the victims would _probably_ not fall to their deaths with Kankurou having a hold on then, Temaru and Gaara readied their attacks. The Sand Gaara grew larger and wrapped Sakura in a protective sphere as several tons of _more_ sand rose from the ground.

Temari waited for the red-haired man and his sons to get _just_ out of the way before unfolding and flapping her fan. Violent torrents of wind and even more sand flew at the people. Streams of wind tore at the men. The sand carried in the air didn't fall as so much as the surrounded all of the men. Had Gaara's targets been normal muggles or even shinobi, this attack probably would have been inescapable. Even Kimimaro had barely survived. There was a muffled sound of loud popping inside.

The sand pressed. Everyone gasped. They were probably dead now.

"_G-G-Ga-Gaara, y-y-you killed them_!" Temari said, stuttering like Hinata. Great, did her brother create ANOTHER international conflict? First Konoha and the Sand, then the Sound and the Sand, and now the wizards and the Sand? What was next, the rest of both worlds?

"_No, I didn't_," Gaara said irritably. "_They aren't inside. Besides, even if I did, it was purely out of Sakura's defense. That spell nearly shredded her to pieces_."

Kankurou snorted. "As if you needed a reason to kill someone," he said.

"Very true," Gaara said.

"Did you do that?" one of the red-haired men (Charlie) asked them.

"How could we?" Kakashi asked logically as the three Sand shinobi left without another word. "We have no wands."

* * *

The sand fell off of Sakura. She shook her head, tossing the sand from her hair and her body. "_Wow_," she said. "_That was just lucky_." 

"_Honestly_," a voice said. "_If you rely on luck as bad as yours, you're going to die_." The sand Gaara stood up.

"_You TALK now? I thought you were just made of sand!_" Sakura yelped. No way. Sand does NOT have vocal chords.

"_He _is_ made of sand, girl_," the voice said. The real Gaara was standing behind her. Sakura was now sitting between a very irritated Sand Gaara doppelganger, and an even more so irritated Kazekage-Gaara. The real version.

"_Hehe, hi, Gaara-sama_," Sakura said nervously. "_Y-you didn't just kill those people, did you? Beyond recognition?_" Gaara frowned and scratched his head.

"_You all think the worse of me_," he said. "_I've changed. As Kazekage, I am much more sophisticated and less bloodthirsty. And no 'sama'. Just Gaara. I have enough idiots calling me that, bowing down to me and kissing ass all the time, and I don't need another snivelling sycophant._"

Temari, who was following behind, snorted. "_He probably would have killed them if he could_," she said. "_But they left before he got a chance to do anything big._"

"_Normally_," Shikamaru said, leaving the bush, "_I would say about three metric tons of sand might be a bit big._"

"_You know, Temari's Boyfriend_," Kankurou said, lowering the bodies, "_You could have helped Sakura and Sasuke over when they were fighting_."

"_Waste of time_," Shikamaru said. "_I am of much better use as a commander. One who doesn't fight. And just watches_."

"_A lazy commander, you mean_," Kankurou replied. Temari would have whacked him with her fan had he not been handling the bodies of airborne muggles.

"_Shut up, Kankurou_," Temari said threateningly with her fan in hand. Ministry wizards were now swarming to meet them.

"_I think we should leave,_" Shikamaru said. "_Unlike them, we don't require the use of wands, and we don't want to attract too much attention. We'll meet back at what's left of our campsite._" They all nodded and immediately left. To the wizards, it almost seemed as if the mysterious 'heroes' disappeared into the darkness.

* * *

Neji, Tenten, and Lee were going through trees and searching for the platinum haired boy who had Silenced Lee. Neji was regretful to admit it, but he much preferred it this way. Not he and Tenten could talk without his butting in. However, it would be dishonorable to leave a teammate in such a state. Thus they went wizard hunting. 

"Oy, Naruto!" Tenten said, finding their blond companion peeing on a tree near their camp. The tent looked a bit scorched, but there was a layer of sand on it too. What had happened while she was gone? Oh well, who cares?

"_Hey, Tenten_!" he said. "_Did you see the flying people?_"

"_I know, it was so strange and funny. Everyone's making such a big fuss out of it though…_"

"_Yeah. Hey you see someone with shiny yellow hair?_"

"_Ino's not here_."

"_A boy in a dress like everyone else here. His name is _Draco Malfoy."

"_Nope. Should we help look?_"

"_Go ahead. He took Lee's voice. Bring him back if you find him._"

"_Alrighty then! Mission time!_" Naruto cheered. "_Sakura-chan! Hinata-chan! Sasuke-bastard! Kiba! Shino! Did I forget anyone…? Anyway, I'm going to find a blond boy!_"

Kiba snorted. "_So you gave up on girls, did you_?"

"_Shut up_!"

"Henge no Jutsu!" Tenten became Malfoy. "_Whoever gets him first doesn't do chores!_" Tenten changed back to her normal body.

"_I'm going too_," Sasuke said.

And so the happy assassins went hunting for a wizard.

Naruto make a countless number of Kage Bunshins, spreading them all about. Neji activated his Byakugan. Sasuke, followed by Ino, followed by Sakura, followed by Lee, followed by Tenten, went searching on foot. They all set out their traps.

Chouji was eating, Kakashi was reading. Kiba was doing nothing, and the Sand siblings didn't give a shit about the great Malfoy hunt. Oddly enough, Kankurou, who was relieving himself near another wizard's camp, was the one who found Malfoy first.

"Hey, what are you doing taking a dump on our place?" Malfoy demanded. Kankurou, a bit irritated, pulled up his pants.

"I'm returning to the trees," he said. "Ever heard of fertilization?"

"You're a freak!" Malfoy said, staring at his face paint. "What's with the make-up?"

Makeup…just as 'fat' was Chouji's red 'no-touch' button, make-up was Kankurou's. He summoned his puppets. "This is not make-up! It's an art!" He wanted to kill this insolent fool! However, if this kid turned out to be important, he might end up screwing over any relationship between the wizards and the shinobi. Was there one?

Using Karasu the Crow puppet, he chased Malfoy and stuffed him inside Kuroari the Black Ant puppet and carried him away back to camp where he could discuss this situation with the rest of the group and receive permission to kill this guy.

"Dude!" Kankurou said to Gaara. "I'm just taking a shit and this idiot goes up dissing my face!"

"What'd he say?" Temari asked him.

"That I was wearing makeup!" he said irratably.

'_But...you do...?_' Temari thought to herself.

"Lemme out!" Malfoy said. "Release me at once!"

Kankurou opened the 'door', shouted "NO!" and shut it back up. Malfoy whimpered.

"That's all?" she said.

"It's an insult to my manhood and my face paint, calling it _makeup_. Makes me sound like a woman."

"Ah, the irony. That's Draco Malfoy," Shikamaru said lazily. "The ones Neji and Tenten were looking for."

"Seriously? Whoa shit! This funny."

"Wow, Malfoy," Shikamaru said, knocking on the cover. "You lucky guy, you. You have a handful of elite shinobi after you and you get caught by the _Sand siblings_. At least they don't kill people outright anymore."

"W-what do you want?" Malfoy asked them.

"Oh, you cursed a friend or something and he can't talk. They want him normal."

"Fuzzy eyebrows? Fine, I'll undo it! I'll use my wand! I'll undo it! Just let me out! It smells funny in here!"

"That's probably the blood," Kankurou said. "It's probably dry, but you'll just have to bear with it. At least it's not as bad as Gaara's sand. It's been _soaked_ in blood.'

Who ARE these people?

"A-ano...Naruto-kun is fifty meters over there..." Hinata said, pointing out into the forest. "And Lee-kun is twenty feet to the right."

"I'll go get their attention," Temari volunteered. She needed the practice. It would be nice to release some of the excess chakra anyway. Raising her large fan, she stepped outside and used the Kuchiyose Kirikiri Mai. It tore through the trees and shredded them apart.

"_Temari-san...don't you think that was a little bit excessive_?" Hinata asked.

"_I think they know to come back now_," Kankurou said weakly. Malfoy whimpered again.

"_Are you trying to kill them?_" Shikamaru asked her.

"_It's a warning to you_," she replied mischievously, obviously thinking about the Veela Incident. Shikamaru shuddered inwardly at the threat, althought he didn't show it.

"What was that?" their prisoner whimpered.

"Temari."

"Huh?"

"_Oi!_" Naruto cried, running out of the fallen trees with sticks and leaves stuck in his hair. "_What's up with you guys?"_

"_We found your Malfoy. You can do our work,_" Kankurou sneered.

"_Kuso! You serious? You didn't even move from your spot!_"

"_We got skills_," Kankurou said smugly.

"_Damate! No fair!_" he cried.

Lee jumped out of the fallen trees behind Naruto, nearly knocking him over. The beautiful green beast of Konoha has arrived! Lee cried. His teeth…sparked. And he gave them a thumbs up sign. And then he began ranting on and on about something.

Not that anyone really cared anyway. They were glad he was Silenced.

"_You know_…" Kakashi said, lazily looking up from his book. "_We aren't the only ones here. There are plenty of wizards over in that direction. Don't kill anyone._"

"_Yeah, yeah_," Temari muttered. Why was everyone mad at her? (Gee, wonder why… -.-). "_I haven't done anything _fun_ in ages. Aside from watching little genins fight to try become chuunins in the exams. That was funny._" Temari tended to look down on younger and lower class shinobi the way a senior would to a freshman in high school…

Neji appeared behind them.

"Those winds of yours almost hit me." Of course. Neji would _never_ let himself get hit by an enemy wind, would he?

"You! I'll undo the charm! Let me out of here?"

"_Nani?_" Naruto didn't understand.

"_Malfoy wants out of Kankurou's cage._"

"_Ah... We aren't actually going to, are we?_"

"_Let him out,_" Neji said to Kankurou. Malfoy ended up falling out of the puppet looking disturbed and seriously freaked out.

"I-I got the spell," he said. Although he was busy plotting. 'My father's going to kill them! Raaahr!' Yeah…

But…for some reason, Malfoy was unable to reverse the charm.

Am I doomed to be silent forever! Lee cried silently. This is horrible! My youth is in danger!

"_You know, Neji-kun_," Tenten said wryly. "_This part might be your fault_."

"_What do you mean_?" Neji said irritably.

"_You sealed his chakra points…_"

Oh…oops.

"_Well I didn't really do it on purpose. They've got only three open holes! Literally._"

"Soooo," Kakashi said, finally looking up from his book. "What's going on here?"

"I've become a mudblood!" Malfoy cried. "A squib!"

"This guy silenced Lee. We can't get rid of the charm."

"Oh." Kakashi took a wand out of his pocket and reversed the charm.

"You got one too, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked him.

"_He made a light!_" Naruto cried.

"You can do that and you didn't even tell us?" Sasuke asked.

"Hm. Yeah."

Everyone facevaulted. Except for Gaara and Shino because they're too dignified to fall on their face. No, all they had were large sweatdrops on their head. After several moments of silence, Kakashi sighed.

"You should return the kid."

"Why?" Kankurou demanded.

"Because he's not ours."

"Can I kill it?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because that is Lucius Malfoy's son."

"Who?"

"Some rich guy in the wizarding world."

"Oh…why not again?"

"Shut up," Gaara said.

"Why?"

"Because I—" They were interrupted by screams.

"_An attack!_" Naruto cried.

"What's that?" Sakura said, pointing up. A giant green skull with a snake coming out of its mouth stood out from the dark sky.

"Dark Mark," Shikamaru said. "A sign of a guy named Voldemort. He stuck that thing above the house of everyone he killed."

"Looks more like an Orochimaru thing," Sasuke said. "Only the thing is _eating_ the snake."

"_Our prisoner has disappeared!_" Naruto said.

Shikamaru sighed. "In a room full of chuunins, jounins, the Kazekage, and Naruto, too," he said. "How troublesome."

"Or pitiful," Temari suggested.

"You know," Tenten said, "That mark is hovering almost right above us. You said it was used as a sign that someone was murdered?"

"Yeah," Shikamaru said.

"Alright, who's dead?" Kakashi asked. "If you're dead, raise your hand."

"We're all here," Sasuke said, "but that blond kid disappeared."

"Oh. Okay then—"

Kakashi didn't get a chance to finish his sentence as stunning spells shot out towards their camp.

"_Kuso!_" Naruto swore.

"Eep!" Hinata ducked.

"..." Shino cried!

"What the hell was that?" Sasuke muttered, getting up and looking around. Gaara was completely covered in his sand shield.

"Where's Temari?" Shikamaru asked looking around.

"I'm in here with Gaara," she answered. Her voice came from the spherical sand shield where only Gaara usually stayed safe inside.

"Stop _hugging_ me, Temari," they could all hear Gaara say quietly from inside the sphere.

Kankurou was sitting inside Kuroari. Neji and Tenten shared Lee the Human Shield together. Naruto had kept Hinata from getting stunned and was stunned himself, along with Lee and Ino who was Sakura's human shield. Chouji was still eating, and Shino was...Shino. Kiba looked alarmed, yet overall fine. And Kakashi was gone. In his place was a large log.

"...Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura and everyone who was conscious looked around.

"He knew it was coming," Kankurou muttered, getting out of his puppet.

"He did the same thing on one of our first real missions when we met the Demon Brothers," Sasuke said. The log that was left in Kakashi's place was a bit scorched.

"_Nani?_"

"YOU!" Some men in dresses—no, ROBES—approached them.

"Me...?" Kiba said.

"All of you! You have the _nerve_ to conjure the Dark Mark?"

"We didn't," Kiba said.

"Don't lie! You're at the scene of the crime."

Akamaru growled. "Well we didn't do it."

"You have no proof!"

Shikamaru sighed. "_Mendokusei_..."

"What? What was that?" The man looked like he was about to have a heart attack. He was getting really red. "Are you going to try to jinx me? I'll have you know that we are wizards with far more experience than you."

"We're Japanese...Japanese 'wizards'," Shikamaru muttered. "_Mandekusou_ means 'how troublesome', you fool. Anyway, the only one of us who has a wand was our teacher who has disappeared."

"Where is he?"

"Right here," Kakashi said, appearing in a cloud of smoke.

"You! There is no Apparating on the premises! It's against the law to Apparate so close to a group of other wizards!"

"I wasn't Apparating."

"You could be charged with—what?"

"Our kind doesn't need wands to do our duty," Kakashi said. "Now, what is the problem...Diggory-san, is it?"

"Someone here conjured the Dark Mark!" the man shouted, turning red.

"Ah, and you think it was these wandless children who are not very well educated in the wizarding arts, let alone your 'dark arts'? The majority of them doesn't know what magic is."

"No-not _magic_! You allowed muggles on the premises! And who are you anyway?"

"Forgive me, my name is Hatake Kakashi. I was sent here by our leader _and_ the order of your Dumbledore-san. We come from the Japanese community in the east. My students have been rigorously studying your language for weeks now so we can complete our mission so I thought we could have a small break and I took them to watch you guys fly on our little brooms. They found it very amusing. I mean, entertaining. Please pardon my English." Kakashi rummaged in his packs and showed them some papers.

"There's a Japanese wizarding society."

"In a sense, yes," Kakashi said. "By the way, if you are looking for culprits, you might want to start by inspecting that thing on the ground over there."

"A house elf!" they cried.

"You believe a house elf could conjure a Dark Mark? For that, it would require a wand."

"It has one."

"Hey that's mine!" Out of nowhere, Harry appeared.

"Where'd you come from?" Kiba asked. ((Yes, where?))

"You know," Shikamaru said. "This…is getting very troublesome."

* * *

"I am very sorry about the troubles," Dumbledore said to Kakashi. The students were already sleeping at the small wizard inn called the Leaky Cauldron. "Had I known such a ruckus would ensue, I would have never given you the tickets." 

"No worries. When Fudge-san, Crouch-san, and Diggory-san were trying to interrogate us, the students were all pretending that they couldn't understand a thing he said or they wouldn't say anything. Well, Naruto wasn't pretending and Shino doesn't really talk and Gaara would rather go on a killing rampage, but that's not the point.They just have a knack for irritating people. Crouch-san got so annoyed by this that he actually placed a translating spell on us for us. Of course, we didn't really tell him anything anyway. It's starting to wear off already too, but I brought their hitai-ate headbands. You said you would spell them, yes?"

"Yes," Dumbledore said. "And I believe your…Hokage, is it? I believe she mentioned something of a sound and an akatsuki?"

"Yes. We believe that Orochimaru may be involved with your Voldemort's plans. He has seemed to have completely disappeared from our nations. We've sent all of our hunter-nin's out into the public searching for him in your muggle worlds to no avail. We have not found him. While they are still searching for him among the normal muggles, we believe that he may have joined a community of your wizards."

"That is entirely possible, though not very fortunate for either of our people."

"Yes. And your Voldemort person seems to be a likely candidate for a…partnership between shinobi and wizards. For one, Voldemort is attempting to achieve immortality, which Orochimaru has already achieved. Our Hokage may never be killed in battle, but Orochimaru can die. However, Tsunade-sama will, eventually, die of old age, meanwhile Orochimaru will remain at large, which is exactly why we must destroy him at all costs. The rumors in the under-wizarding world of Voldemort's return at the same time that Orochimaru disappeared…that's not a good thing, you see? And about the Akatsuki…it's a high level organization formed by missing-nins from all over the Eastern shinobi world. Orochimaru was a one of them. In fact, he was a weaker member. The Akatsuki are after two of my students."

"Which ones?" Dumbledore asked. "Why?"

"Their identities and their reasons are best left unknown," Kakashi said. "It is against our law in Konoha that anyone be told. Of course, several people have found out on their own anyway, not that they're still alive to tell the tale."

"Ah, so I suppose I shall not be told until this all blows over?"

"You are most likely correct, sir. So anyway, we made contact with Potter and his companions. Once he attends Hogwarts, we'll put him under constant surveillance. So I'm thinking about having a few students in each of the Hogwarts houses."

"That sounds fine to me," Dumbledore mused. "However, there's the fact that _you_ need a place here. You obviously can't be a student."

"I could make myself one."

"But constantly using your…jutsus, is it? It would be a bit strenuous."

"Not really."

"Nevertheless, I believe it would be best to give you a teaching position."

"That's fine with me," Kakashi said. "So, what am I teaching?"

"Hm…" Dumbledore smiled. "What, indeed?"

* * *

"No, no, no, no, NO!" Naruto cried. 

"Oh come on, Naruto," Sakura said, whacking him on his head. "Quite complaining and just do it."

"I don't waaaannnnaa…" he moaned. "I'm a shinobi! I can't wear dresses!"

"They are robes," Shikamaru amended. "Wizarding robes."

"But they're stilll dresses!" he said.

They were currently at Madam Malkin's shop. She was tailoring robes for Naruto. Almost everyone else had gotten theirs. With the exception of Naruto. The girls were relatively fine with the robes. Shino was already wearing his custom made winter robes, which also covered his face, making him look like a vampire wearing sunglasses. Akamaru was content with Kiba's robes, able to comfortable sit inside without falling. Kankurou was planning on just cutting it at the waist and wearing his black pants.

"Stop complaining," Kiba muttered. "We're all hating this just as much as you are."

"No you aren't, or else you wouldn't be wearing this."

The lady measuring him sighed. "Look, boy, I don't have all day for this, so please just hold still! I still need to give you your dress robes."

"Dress robes?" Naruto repeated warily. "What for…?"

"Well you are all attending Hogwarts, are you not?"

"Yeah…"

"This year, they are holding a Yule Ball where you dress up and dance."

Dance! "No! I can't go! I'm not going to Hogwarts."

"Yes...you...are...Naruto," Sakura said slowly with glowing eyes. Everyone backed away in fear. This was the Inner Sakura, who had become more pronounced over the past two years. "Stop complaining before I stuff those robes into your mouth and out of your nose!"

"Yes ma'am..." Naruto whimpered. Sakura-chan was getting scarier every year! And her super strength wasn't helping.

And so everyone was fitted with their school robes and their dress robes. Shino was already wearing his custom-made, high collared cloak along with it. Winter-wear.

"Where is Kakashi-sensei anyway?" Sakura asked later, now perfectly calm.

"He left somewhere last night," Shikamaru said.

"He was supposed to meet us this morning, but never showed up," Kiba said.

"Happens all the time," Sasuke told him.

"I wonder what his excuse is now?" Naruto wondered.

"Who cares?" Tenten said. "Let's go do something fun while we're here! We've already got our books. Let's do sightseeing."

"Aren't we supposed to have wands?" Temari asked. "I mean, everyone else does in this world and we don't."

"Kakashi-sensei said he's giving us some for cheap. Someone's spare wands. I feel so second-hand."

"I'm going back to the Leaky Cauldron," Chouji said. "I'm getting something to eat."

"I'm going too," Shikamaru said.

"No, let's go there!" Kiba said, pointing at a building called the Magical Menagerie.

"What do you need there?" Naruto asked. "You've already got Akamaru."

"Akamaru wants to see what they've got to eat here, right boy?" Akamaru, sitting in his jacket, barked enthusiastically, wagging his tail. Shikamaru, Temari, Chouji, Sasuke, Sakura, and Ino returned to their rooms in the Leaky Cauldron. Neji, Lee, Tenten, Kiba, Hinata, Shino, Naruto, Gaara, and Kankurou went inside the animal shop.

The walls were lined with a countless number of cages where feathers and fur stuck out in some places. Akamaru sniffed at a snail that growled back at him. Akamaru barked excitedly.

"No, Akamaru," Kiba said. "The sign right there says that the orange snails are poisonous. You can't eat that."

Shino was looking at a few bugs in disgust. Why? Because they were food for frogs. Frogs! What were the use of having frogs! They ate bugs! Those vile, toady creatures with warts covering every inch of their bodies. In Shino's opinion, frogs should be the ones that are eaten. Evil frogs...

Tenten was playing with a black cat and Neji pretended to be interested.

"It's sooo cute!" Tenten cooed at a cat that was barely four inches tall.

"Yeah."

"Don't you like it?"

"Yeah."

"Are you pretending to be listening to me?"

"Yeah." Wait a minute... "I mean, no! I was listening, I was listen—"

"No fighting in the corridors please," the owner said absentmindedly as she flipped through the pages of the _Daily Prophet._ Hm…poor security at the World Cup.

"Gaara-san," Lee said, running towards Gaara and Kankurou, who began to walk faster.

"Ignore him," Kankurou muttered.

"I am."

"Gaara-san! You must have not heard me! Did you see the—"

"No."

"But I didn't even fini—"

"No."

"Bu—"

"No." Sand trickled from the cages. Lee backed away.

"N-N-Naruto-kun," Hinata said. "The animals here are so strange."

"I know!" Naruto said excitedly. "Did you see the skipping mice? And the poisonous snails? And the singing owl?"

"H-hai! There's also a fox here. It reminded me of you."

"Really? I wanna see I wanna see!"

"It's over here…" He followed her to a cage. Inside was a sleeping fox wth reddish orange fur. It had a gold earring too. That was weird.

"Wow…" Naruto said.

"S-see? It's got an orange coat and whiskers and it's all…foxy like."

Naruto grinned at her description. "Yeah."

"Hey, kids," the person at the front table said. "That one's not for sale by the way. No one would want to buy it anyway. I don't know why the boss keeps it out on the counter, but she got it about…fourteen, fifteenyears ago? She says it's supposed to be some sort of spell. Won't wake up until a certain person comes by. It's not going to wake up around you so don't bother trying to—"

"AAARRGH!" The fox opened it's yellow eyes and attacked Naruto, biting his arm. "Get this monster off of me!"

"A-a-ano..." Hinata tugged slightly at it's fur. The fox immediately changed targets. And intentions.

It climbed onto her neck and into her jacket.

"Eep!"

"Get out, perverted fox!" Naruto said angrily trying to grab it's quickly disappearing tail.

"NARUTO!" Naruto was struck by to angry shinobi. Neji used his byakugan and Kiba growled.

"Fox in her shirt!" Naruto said.

"Gee, that's a nice way of putting it," Kiba retorted.

"No, look!" He pointed at Hinata, who was squirming around trying to pull it out of her jacket. And then she stopped and unzipped her sweater.

"Aaw," she cooed. "Kawaii!" The fox was sleeping in the bundle of clothes.

"It's not cute!" Naruto said. "It's a disgusting pervert fox!"

"Naruto," Gaara said, "It's an animal. Not a person."

"It's crazy! It just woke up out of nowhere! Hey clerk! Where are you? I'm suing! Your animal attacked me! Where are you!"

The clerk returned with a woman.

"See? It woke up!"

The woman put on her spectacles and peered closely at Naruto and Hinata.

"You woke up the fox," she said.

"It attacked me!"

"It's yours."

"…_Nani_?"

"A man had given me that fox as a donation to my store and said that whoever was able to wake up the fox was destined to keep it or something like that."

"…Huh?"

"Please, Naruto, let's keep it," Hinata said, petting the fox. It _purred. _Do foxes even purr!

"No! I don't wanna! I'm never going to keep that thing! You can't make me! No, Hinata, stop it with those puppy eyes! You can't convince me! No more of those eyes…! I'm not taking it and you can't make me!"

* * *

"Naruto," Sakura said calmly. "Why is there a fox biting your leg?" 

"I got it for free," Naruto said grumpily. "Its fur would make a good hat and I think its meat would probably—ow! Get off!" He shook his leg wildly as the fox tightened its grip on his ankle. He swung it one last time and it managed to land in Hinata's arms.

"It's sooo cute!" Sakura said.

"Yeah!" Tenten added.

"It almost reminds me of Naruto! Only cuter!" Temari said. The girls all pet it. Shikamaru and Neji glared at Naruto.

"Hey I didn't want that thing in the first place," Naruto said. The poor boys. They had no chance in competing with the fox.

"What are you naming him?" Ino asked him.

"Iono…" Naruto muttered. But then, an idea flashed in his mind. "Wait! I know! I'll name him Kyubi!" The fox looked at him with astonishment, as did all of the girls.

"Not funny!" Sakura said, smacking his head into the ground. Naming the fox after the demon that attacked Konoha! It's too cute to be named after such a ferocious creature!

"How about Kitsune?"

"But it's a boy," Temari said. 'I think…it has no sex…?'

"The scientific name for the red fox _Vulpes vulpes_," Sakura said. "So his name will be Vulpes!"

"I like it!" Temari said.

"Sounds like a Pokemon," Shikamaru said.

"What's that?"

"Nevermind…" How troublesome…a pet was getting more attention than _he_ was.

"Yo!" Kakashi said. "Playing with animals?" The fox watched him. Kakashi smiled under his face mask. This was interesting.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto said. "Where've you been?"

"I was discussing the future with the most powerful wizard," Kakashi said. "You guys are to—"

"LIAR!" Naruto and Sakura yelled.

Kakashi sighed. "We've been doing everything at the last minute," he said. "You guys are to collect your belongings and head to the train station where you will leave to Hogwarts."

"When?" Sasuke asked.

"Hm, I think the train leaves in fifteen minutes."

"What!"

Everyone scrambled to their rooms, hastily grabbing their belongings. Kakashi laughed to himself. Such easily excitable children. So gullible and ignorant of the western magics that Kakashi had recently discovered.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura said. She and Hinata, students of Tsunade with their super strengths, carried their packs with ease as everyone else, aside from Gaara who held his things in sand and Kankurou who stored it inside Karasu, struggled with their heavy things.

"Don't worry, you guys," Kakashi said. "Because I've got…THIS!" He held up a kettle. Everyone stared in amazement and anger.

"What the hell is _that_!" Kiba said. Akamaru barked. "Yeah, you're an idiot!"

The fox on Naruto's head yawned and went back to sleep.

"It's a Portkey," Kakashi said. "Touch it. Poke it. Whatever."

Naruto hastily grabbed at the kettle and found himself lost and confused. He was alone in a giant crowd of people.

"Ah…Hinata? Sakura? Sasuke-bastard? Kakashi?"

"Right here," Kakashi answered. "Get on the train before they leave without you."

* * *

In the first train compartment was Chouji, Sakura, Ino, Tenten, and Lee. Ino was about to push the person next to her over for room when, realizing it was Chouji, remembered the hazards of slightly implying his overweight problem. So…she turned to the person on her left. 

"Hey, Forehead-san," Ino said, pushing against Sakura. "Will you _please _move over a bit? You've got a big forehead _and _big butt.

"Well, _excuse me, _but can't you see you're the one taking up _all _the space? Besides, I can't move any more than this," Sakura shot back.

"Sakura-chan, if you like, you can sit on my lap!" Lee said cheerily.

"NO!"

"Go on, _Forehead-san. _You got an admirer there…and you can leave Sasuke-kun to me," Ino said, pushing Sakura to the side a little.

"Sasuke-kun is _not_ yours," Sakura glared.

"Well he's never going to be yours." Ino glared back.

"Excuse me…but why do you two both have crushes on Uchiha?" Tenten asked.

"Oh, so you like long-haired crossdressers better?" Ino turned to reply with a pissed off look on her face. "Sasuke's hotter than Hyuga."

"Is not, Pig-san," Ten Ten growled. "At least mine isn't genderless. He actually has an _interest_ in girls."

"What, are you calling Sasuke-kun _homosexual!_"

"You said it, not me," Tenten replied. Well, he wasn't quite homosexual. Just not interested in girls or boys. Maybe something in between?

"Ino-pig is stupid!" Sakura said. "Ignore her!"

"You b1tC4!'

"You b1tC41Ng W40R3!"

"Well, you're the W(&$#$!"

"#$#($&!#!"

"#$(&$(&#!" Cat fight!

"..." Ten Ten and Lee watched the two girls scratch, bite, and pull hair. Violent.

"Munch...munch...munch..." Chouji ate his chips in silence.

* * *

Neji's train compartment wasn't so swell either. Neji was thoroughly pissed. He had been saving an entire compartment for just him and Tenten, even going as far as to chasing Slytherins out with his freaky Byakugan eyes. And then…everyone else came in. Curse you, Goooood! no offense to religious people 

Neji was stuck with Kiba, Sasuke, Shino, Kankurou, and Gaara. Kiba whimpered silently. It was way to quiet. It was silence all around. You could hear the creaking of the train wheels on the road and actual talking in the next room.

_Squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak…_

Kankurou stared at Gaara. Gaara stared at Sasuke. Sasuke stared at Neji. Neji stared at Kiba. Kiba stared at Shino. You couldn't tell who Shino was staring at. He had super cool sunglasses that blocked all eye contact. Although if anyone would ever lean in very closely, ignoring the constant buzzing sound under Shino's skin, you could almost hear the faint sound of…buzzing. Or maybe it was snoring?

_I can't take in another moment of this silence! _Kiba thought. So, the he broke his eye contact with any of the other people and decided to rest his eyes on his lovely dog, Akamaru, instead. Kiba pet Akamaru slowly. Then he scratched harder. And then even harder until Akamaru barked, telling him to stop rubbing his fur backward, and bit his hand. Yow!

_Squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak… _

"So, I'm excited to go to the Hogwarts, how 'bout you guys?" Kiba asked, suddenly breaking the silence. Shino moved his head slightly. Everyone else stared at him. Gaara stood up, Kiba suffered a heart attack, and Gaara left the room, gourd in hand. Where he was keeping it while he was sitting, no one will ever know. Meanwhile, everyone else was still staring at Kiba.

Whimpering slightly, Kiba went back to petting Akamaru in silence.

* * *

"Party party party!" Naruto cried. "I hope Hogwarts has ramen! 

"Who knows?" Shikamaru said. "We're in the West."

Temari was sticking to Shikamaru like a...like a...like a Vulpes was sticking to Naruto's arm. After the veela incident, she seemed to be on watch for any potential dangers.

"A-ano...Shikamaru-san, do you know what time—?"

"Why do you wanna know?" Temari interrupted.

_'Mandekuso_…'

"She just wants to know what time it is," Naruto said. Gaara walked into the compartment with his gourd in hand. "Oh, hey, Gaa—"

Gaara left through the other door.

"—ra…Hey, Temari, is he still all antisocial? I thought someone said he changed."

"Yeah, after the Akatsuki got him, he's been…hazardous."

"We should go after him! What if he kills someone?"

"Not likely. He might be in a bad mood, but he hasn't done anything so drastic yet."

A deafening bang and the sound of screaming proved Temari wrong.

"Well," Naruto said. "That's not good."

"Mandekuso…" Shikamaru sighed. He leaned back in his chair, about to go to sleep, when Naruto pulled him by the ponytail and dragged him out, followed by Temari and Hinata.

"Gaara! You put a freaking hole in the roof!" Naruto yelled over the wind. Gaara looked pissed. Sand from the gourd was holding three students by their ankles in midair.

Gaara looked at him with a 'so-what?' look on his face.

"You're going to destroy the train and everyone with it!"

Gaara glared. Particles of sand floated to the top of the train, filling in the empty space.

Shikamaru sighed and pulled out…a wand! He muttered something (_'repairo_…?' Naruto thought), and fixed the hole.

"Wow! Shikamaru!" Naruto said. "How'd you do that? Where'd you get that? What is that?"

"Kakashi gave us _all_ wands except for you because you'd probably do something stupid with it," Shikamaru said.

"How did you already know their magics?" Temari asked. Shikamaru pulled out his books.

"Kakashi made me do extra studying while we were at the Leaky Cauldron," he said.

"Alright, you," Naruto said, pointing to the captives, still wrapped upside down in sand. "What did you do?"

"We didn't do anything!" the boy said. He was the smallest, but seemed to be the leader.

"Wait a minute…" Naruto made a face. "It's you!"

"Who is it?" Hinata asked.

"It's that kid who Silenced Lee!"

"You're those people who kidnapped me!"

"You dissed Kankurou while he was taking a crap and said he was wearing make up! You had it coming!"

"He was shitting on our part of the camp!"

"I was fertilizing the place, so HAH!"

"This is getting us no where," Shikamaru said with a sigh. "Gaara, _please_, let him down. We'll probably get into serious shit if you kill him."

"You can't kill me! That's illegal!" Obviously. "You're just our age! Quit talking like your better than us."

"Oh, but, my dear," Temari said softly with a cocky grin on her face. "But we _are_ better than you."

"Aaah! Stupid Vulpes, get off!" The fox was running around everywhere. Even Gaara watched in amusement as it climbed all over Naruto's face. He threw it at the window, where it bounced back and snarled at him.

Shikamaru sighed. "Look, Gaara, don't kill this guy. Naruto, Vulpes, stop fighting. Temari, please don't let your brother screw up our mission."

Gaara begrudgingly released his captives.

"Alright, Gaara," Shikamaru said in a calm voice. "Now let's go back to Kiba's comp—"

"No."

"What...?"

Gaara left. Naruto followed after. "Uh...I'll go with Gaara and make sure he doesn't kill anyone right off the bat!" Naruto said.

"I'll...go with Naruto," Hinata said, going after them.

"So, Gaara," Naruto said, walking quickly to catch up with him. "What do you wanna do?" They passed by several compartments with other students, although they were completely ignoring the questions like 'Who are you?' and 'What's with the gourd?' and 'I thought we could only have cats, owls, and toads…?' and 'Cool eyes!'

"Nothing," Gaara replied dully.

"Oh come on, you just had to get up to want to do something," Naruto said. Hinata pet Vulpes in her arms. Vulpes yawned quietly.

"Look food! Gaara let's eat food!" Naruto said, pointing at a witch pushing a cart full of sweets.

"Hey, Miss!" Naruto said. "How about some of that? And that! And that! And that...!"

"Do you even have any of the money to pay for it all?" the lady asked him. Naruto patted himself down. T-T Gaara sighed and pulled some pieces of gold out of his pocket.

"Wow, gold!" Naruto said.

"That's the currency here."

"How'd you get it?" Was Naruto always this loud? Yeah. Gaara remembered. He was There was never a time when he wasn't yelling.

"As Kazekage, I get paid for my work, obviously. I just traded this in at Gringott's Bank down near Diagon Alley."

"Cool! The trolls nearly killed me there, but that was awesome! There was a whole bunch of gold, I bet I could have robbed the place easy!"

"Whatever."

"Hey, Hinata," Naruto said, passing her some of the pumkpin...things. "Eat some! Gaara's treat."

"I'm not sure if Gaara-sama would want me to waste his..."

"It's not a waste! It's food! As long as you finish eating it, it's not a waste!" Naruto said cheerfully.

"Just eat," Gaara said tiredly. Of course, he always sounded tired. Or angry. But usually both. Insomnia makes people weird.

"H-hai." She nibbled the food as the three walked around in the train.

"Hey, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto said, reaching an almost empty train compartment.

"Yo." Kakashi didn't even look up from the pages in his book. They all sat down in the almost empty room. Naruto and Hinata sat next to Kakashi. Meanwhile, Gaara was stuck sitting next to...a fellow one-eyed teacher.

It wasn't that the other man had one eye, but he only had one normal eye. Kakashi had one normal eye, and one sharingan eye. This new man had one normal eye, and one huge eyeball that was currently focusing on Kakashi. Kakashi had noticed the teacher "Mad Eye Moody" watching him. This guy seemed a bit paranoid and off... His rolling eye had been focusing on Kakashi's face for the last three hours. Moody was just being paranoid. His eye couldn't see through Kakashi's hitai-ate headband or his face mask. Now, three other students had joined him, each wearing their own metal headband, although the girl wore hers on her neck, the blond wore his normall on his forehead (no slant), and the others had his tied onto a giant…gourd?

Moody looked inside using his lopsided eye and saw...nothing. Unlike how Kakashi's face was hidden, there wasn't anything in the gourd. It was like the kid was just carrying a gourd that wasn't even hollowed out. And what was it made of?-!

The blond, the girl, and the panda-eyed redhead sat in silence.

"SOOOOO!" Naruto said. "Is there any ramen in Hogwarts?"

"A-a-ano...I don't know..." Hinata said.

"..." Gaara didn't say anything.

Kakashi giggled in his book. _Giggled_?

Moody didn't say anything.

"Where's the bathroom?" Naruto asked suddenly.

"At the end of the train," Kakashi answered absently, pointing back the way they came.

"Okay, seeya!" Naruto pulled Hinata and Gaara out with him. Moody frowned. Why did he take the other two then?

* * *

"A-a-a-ano..." 

"Yeah, Hinata?" Naruto asked her as he ran out.

"I think she wants to know why you're taking us to the restroom with you," Gaara said bluntly. "And I am curious too. Although I'm not really sure I want to know why."

"I don't need to go! That creepy old man kept on looking at me funky like! Did you see his eye? It's like Kakashi's, only it rolls around in its head and looks like it's been dyed blue and it's yellow with an infection!" Naruto shuddered. The train slowed to a stop, nearly throwing the three shinobi all off balance.

"Look," Hinata said, pointing out into the rain where, in the distance, you could almost see the silhouette of a stony medieval castle. "We're here."

* * *

It was raining hard when Kakashi walked into a carriage pulled by mutated horses and found an old man already in there. "Oh, hello, Dumbledore-san," Kakashi said, wiping the water from his eye. 

"I hear that your students already caused a ruckus in the train," Dumbledore said with a chuckle. "A whole in the roof, yes?"

"Ah, the Kazekage of the Wind Country has recently recovered from an abduction from the Akatsuki. He's rather on guard as of late. You might even go as far as to say paranoid, but not to his face, of course. You might die."

"Abduction?"

"I suppose it would be best to explain things to you more in depth," Kakashi said. "I received a message from Tsunade-sama explaining that you are allowed to know of this, but the Akatsuki hare after the two demons in my students. Which, only three of them officially _are_ my students, but it's easier to call them that. Anyway, Gaara was actually killed in the process. Fortunately, thanks to some kind of miracle involving returning the demon to the host's body within a certain time limit, Gaara was resurrected. It's similar to how the human heart stops beating, and then muggles would shock them and the heart would restart, yes? He's relatively back to normal, albeit a bit paranoid or, ah, twitchy. Hm..."

"Ah, I see. Running past the river of death only to return is a very disturbing experience. I suppose..."

"As you can see, sending my group here was the best choice we had. Not only would we be hiding among wizards to avoid the eyes of the Akatsuki, but we could also protect your school celebrity from your Voldemort and, possibly, our Orochimaru, who is still after another of my student's body. Don't ask, it's complicated. Anyway, one of our retrieval-slash-rescue mission, Naruto, the host of a demon fox, had been struck by an enemy jutsu. We don't know what its effect is, or who cast it. We had been in a three-way battle between Akatsuki and the Sound. However, since discovering more techniques with your 'wands', I do believe that it may possibly be a spell that had hit him...

"In any case, we believe that sending them here to protect Potter and hide at the same time would be the best choice. After all, it'll keep them feeling important, rather than hidden, useless that they cannot assist us in open warfare. And none of Naruto's teammates know of the demon. The Fourth wished it to be this way. You understand how things work, don't you? Sorry about keeping you in the dark. If you would like for Naruto and Gaara to return to our world, it would be perfectly fine. Although we would prefer it if we were still paid."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. He felt slightly…confused. Not that he didn't understand their vow of secrecy, not telling any of his teammates for it may cause unnecessary tension. But…was this addition to Hogwarts a good thing or bad? His eyes twinkled like Gai's teeth. Kakashi shuddered inwardly at the comparison. Dumbledore smiled. Atleast these kids would keep life interesting.

"No worries," Dumbledore said. "As long as I am here, I will do all that is in my power to keep my students, including yours,safe."

"You sound like a kage," Kakashi joked.

"Haha, do I?"

* * *

(1) kotatsu: a table-heater mix in Japan 

Damate: shut up


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Traitor? 

Pairings: Naruto X Hinata, Shikamaru X Temari, Neji X Tenten, ((Requested and Added Pairings: Kakashi X Kurenai, Hermione X Ron, Harry X Ginny, Gaara X Sakura, Draco X Pansy, Sasuke X Ino, and possibly more to come.))

**Demon mindspeaking**  
Host mindspeaking  
" Normal speaking"  
'Thinking'  
"..." silence

* * *

The Great Hall was filled with the usual clinking of utensils and talking between friends about what they did that summer, the Voldemort-Harry Potter issues, and stuff. Now one may wonder. Why are they talking about one boy? Well this boy was not just any boy. He is the only one to survive attacks by the dreaded Voldemort. But they weren't talking about that anymore. Right now, they were all wondering "Who were the new kids on the train?"

Everyone's thoughts were interrupted when the Great Halls doors opened. The talking abruptly ceased; everyone's attention on the figures standing in the door way. The staff members suddenly tensed up at the site of the new arrivals except Dumbledore.

He merely gazed at them as though he was expecting them. He waved for them to come forward to the staff table. The figures who were all dressed in black cloaks except for the adult who stood in the front wearing muggle-like attire, a green vest, a headband covering his eye, and a mask. But the one who caught the most attention were the three kids who carried large objects on their backs (a fan, a gourd, and three wide rolls of…toilet paper?), a boy out of dress code wearing an orange jump suit, and the pink haired girl.

"I'm sorry, Dumbledore-san," Kakashi said, late as usual. Dumbledore knew well enough after the first three meetings total from Kakashi to not expect punctuality from their leader. "I was discussing several extra details with my students outside."

"Well it does not matter," Dumbledore said. "You only missed the entrance ceremony and the sorting of students."

"...Isn't that everything?"

"Well, there is always the meal."

"Ah, the most important part of the entrance ceremony. How could I forget?"

"Quite easily, considering the recent chaos concerning the hole in the roof and the expenses. Since your students are here now, I'm sure we can spare an extra few minutes to sort them out, yes? Now, children, don't be afraid. Don't hesitate, the Sorting Hat isn't supposed to eat your head." Isn't _supposed_ to...

Was he talking to the strangers or the Hogwarts students? Because it was all in vain. The newer children looked slightly apprehensive, preferring the back seat and avoiding the spotlight. The Hogwarts students…sensed their vibe and couldn't help but want to scoot farther from them in their seats.

"Just go up on stage and put the hat on your head."

The shinobi looked somewhat hesitant to touch the raggedy thing. Somehow, with all the shuffling and lining up and pushing the other person to the front, Hinata got stuck going first.

She slowly trudged towards the hat, completely and painfully aware of the hundreds and perhaps even thousand students watching her. She put the hat on her head. The moment she did so, she heard a voice in her head.

_Hm…shy, yet bold at unexpected moments_, the voice in her head said. _Hm, a smart girl. Nevertheless... _

"GRYFFINDOR!" the Hat shouted.

Hinata nearly fell over and tripped over her own feet in shock. The shinobi each stood in a defensive position. Most people were shocked that they were shocked. Such a strange, paranoid reaction to a talking hat! What was so strange about that? These people were so weird.

Nevertheless, one of the tables clapped loudly. Hinata stared.

"Sit over here!" someone said.

She threw off the hat and rushed over, blushing madly. She's so cute!

_Hm...rebellious, brave, and smells like a dog. You're definitely a— _

"GRYFFINDOR!" Kiba grinned and ran over to Hinata who smiled. She wasn't alone!

_The prodigy and the sensible one belongs in—_

"RAVENCLAW!" Neji left calmly moving towards the less fun looking group.

_You're on the verge of a change, yet still dark, powerful, and ambitious, you, sir, belong in—_

"SLYTHERIN!" Gaara ignored the stares he received from half the class and the half-hearted claps from the other half. He sat in an empty seat at a group of very unenthusiastic students robed in green. Surprisingly, he would have blended in really well had his hair not been as red as a Weasley's. Some of the Slytherins were wondering if he was a one of them. Seemed a bit more threatening than one, though.

_Brave yet intelligent and highly capable. _

"RAVENCLAW!" Tenten ran excitedly to Neji and literally jumped on him. So far, they were the only Ravenclaws! Yes!

_You fight for your friends and your precious ones. You'll never give up and return twice as powerful. You would make a good_—

"GRYFFINDOR!" Lee grinned, flashing lights off his teeth. Everyone in the room looked away from the blinding lights except for Shino because he had his sunglasses and Dumbledore, whose twinkling eyes were just as powerful as Gai's.

_You once fought for your friends. Then you fought against them. Having been returned to your allies, you are in turmoil. Nevertheless, you'd make a perfect—_

"SLYTHERIN!" Sasuke had the same feedback from the Slytherins and gave the same silent reply as Gaara did. He didn't even bother talking to Gaara. They never spoke, and never even met outside the tournament.

_Complete Silence? Let me see your memories. _

_… _

_What the heck? _

The hat frowned on stage as it peered into the mind of thousands of bugs before finally finding Shino's.

"Uh….SLYTHERIN!" Shino went over to the table. He didn't say anything. They didn't say anything. Nobody said anything.

_Smart, ambitious, and in love with a certain angsty guy and someone else. _

"RAVEN—!"

_HECK NO! _Inner Sakura roared. _Sasuke-kun is in Slytherin. SLYTHERIN! _

"Sakura…" Kakashi whispered very loudly to her. "Please go to the Ravenclaw table."

Tenten and Neji sighed inwardly. So much for not having any other irritating shinobi in the same House as them.

"Aw..."

Ino stuck her tongue out at her. Sakura held up her lethal fist. Ino got up on stage, confident she would be placed into the Slytherin with her beloved Sasuke.

"GRYFFINDOR!" it shouted immediately.

"HellnoImgonnakillit!" she said, throwing it to the floor, ready to stomp on it. Chouji held her back in an armhold.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat announced for Chouji. Chouji continued eating the chips and went over to the Gryffindor table.

_You love your brothers and you love to be powerful._

"GRI—"

_You stick me in there with them and I'll tear you to tiny pieces on stage and use you for toilet paper! The Sand Siblings stick together!_

"..." There was a brief silence.

"SLYTHERIN!" Temari skipped to Gaara's side. Kankurou walked onto the stage.

"SLYTHERIN!" He didn't even put on the hat yet...! Kankurou shrugged. Oh well, to put on the hat, he would have to take off his own. And that would take so much longer on the stage. He felt so self-conscious without his makeup—erm, facepaint. He had forgotten to put it on beforehand.

Shikamaru took his time dragging himself up the stairs and onto the cage. The Sorting Hat had barely touched his ponytail, faintly mentioning something about his wits yet lack of ambition, when it's deafening cry echoed in the Great Hall.

"RAVENCLAW!"

Knew it. Always did...

Naruto put on the hat excitedly on his head and found...silence. It didn't say anything.

_How odd...like the boy with the tanuki. You belong in Gryffindor but...Slytherin suits you as well. Only you, the racoon child, and Harry Potter have ever had this kind of dilemma..._

The students on the Great Hall shifted uneasily, waiting for the last boy to finish so they can eat.

"GRYFFINDOR!" Naruto sighed and ran to the others.

"That was taking way too long," Naruto said with a laugh. "I was beginning to feel I didn't belong or something."

"Yeah, and I'm hungry," Kiba said.

"Hey you!" a voice said. It was the dude with a scratch on his forehead.

"Who are you?" Naruto asked.

"That's Harry Potter," Hinata said. "He's a celebrity of some sort here."

"Of some sort? OF SOME SORT!" a kid said. "This is THE Harry POTTER! The vanquisher of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named! How can you not know who he is!"

"_Ignore him_," whispered the red haired boy next to 'Hairy'. His hair was a different shade than Gaara's. It was brighter and more fiery. He was probably a cheerful guy.

"Collin, I fell in!" a smaller version of the Harry Potter fanatic shouted, throwing himself into the empty seat next to the larger one. "It was brilliant! And something in the water grabbed me and pushed me back in the boat!"

"Cool!" Collin said. "It was probably the giant squid, Dennis!"

Calling? Tennis? Eh?

"Wow!" Dennis said, as though nobody in their wildest dreams could hope for more than being thrown into a storm-tossed, fathoms-deep lake, and pushed out of it by a giant sea monster. Kiba shuddered at the thought. Sushi gone wrong.

"Dennis, Dennis! See that boy there? That's _Harry Potter!_" They began jabbering on senselessly. Harry stared, focusing on his friends. Naruto could understand now why his red haired friend told him to ignore them.

"Hair-ee?" Naruto said.

"Yeah," the red head replied. "And I'm Ron Weasley. We were in the same box at the World Cup."

"Oh," Naruto said, nodding, although he didn't really remember the guy.

"And I'm Hermione Granger," a bushy haired girl said. _Squirrel…_ Naruto thought when he saw her. He didn't know why. But she was a squirrel.

"Her-My-Oni? You're whose demon?"

"No, that's my whole name. Hermione."

"Oh...that's really long," Naruto said. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage of Konoha!"

"Oh, that's great," Hermione replied, although she wasn't really sure what it was. Not that she would ever admit that.

"AH!" Naruto fell backwards as a red fox jumped onto the table the same time food began to appear. Oops. They missed the rest of what Dumbledore said…

"Hey, I thought only cats, owls, and toads were allowed here as pets?" the boy said. "I'm Seamus by the way. Seamus Finnegan."

"I'm Inuzuka Kiba!" Kiba said. "And this is Akamaru. Anyway, he's not a pet! He's my partner! Or weapon."

"Weapon?" most of the wizards at the table asked.

"Well, the fox isn't a weapon or a pet," Naruto retorted. "It's a nuisance."

"Shut up and eat!" Ino said angrily. Chouji was already doing so.

"What's with her?" Harry asked the blond.

"She likes Sasuke. Sasuke's in Slytherin."

"Oh."

Ron must have made a face because Naruto scrunched up his own face and asked him, "What's with the look?"

"Nothing. Slytherins just tend to be on the dark and evil side," Ron said cheerfully, eating his pie. Hm...dark and evil. Yeah, that fit Sasuke and Gaara just about right. But that was still mean!

Naruto looked at the feast laid out in front of him. This wasn't ramen...but it was great! The only time he had ever eaten a meal like this was one Christmas celebration at Sasuke's manor with almost all of their fellow genins. When everyone still was a genin. Naruto pouted at the thought. He was the only from the old group who was still a genin.

"You don't like it?" Hinata asked him. Sure, it wasn't his usual instant ramen meal, but it wasn't too bad.

"Nah, it's good," Naruto said honestly. "Just thinking."

"Oh." Of course. Whenever Naruto was thinking, he always had that faraway look in his eyes. She didn't like it when he thought about things. He looked so sad all the time when he did. And, as if her anxiety about Naruto's reflections was noticed...

"Hey, give that back!" He snatched at Vulpes's tail as the fox ran down the table with a turkey leg in its mouth.

"MINE!" Naruto said, chasing after him. Everyone laughed. "Gimme! Come back here, Vulpes!" (2) Honestly, what was the use of naming a fox if it doesn't answer?

"So," Dumbledore said, "now that we are all fed and watered…" Hermione scoffed. Slave labor! "I must once more ask for your attention. Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you all the list of objects forbidden inside this castle has been extended into Screaming Yo-Yos, Everbashing Boomerangs, and Fanged Frisbees. The full list comprises some four hundred thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr. Filch's office. As always, I would like to remind you all that the forest on the grounds as is the village of Hogsmeade are forbidden to all below third-years. It is also my painful duty to inform you that the InterHouse Quidditch Cup will not take place this year."

"What?" Harry said. He looked at Fred and George, fellow Quidditch players, who where mouthing the exact same thing. Only they were too stunned for words.

"Due to an event starting in October and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teacher's time and energy—but I am sure you will enjoy it immensely—I have no greater pleasure than to announce that this year at Hogwarts—"

The thunder boomed overhead and the door to the Great Hall creaked open. The man Naruto, Gaara, and Hinata had encountered in the train walked into the room. The lightning flashed and lit up his heavily scarred face. He walked with a limp in his stride. Nevertheless, he strode/limped with pride straight towards Dumbledore. He spoke quietly with Dumbledore, who nodded.

"Ahem, I would like to introduce to you our newest Defense Against Dark Arts teacher, Professor Moody."

It was common courtesy each year for students to clap for any new arrivals (namely: the Defense Against Dark Arts teacher, for a new one came every single year), but all of the professors looked rather grim. Dumbledore and Hagrid were the only people to clap for Moody. Kakashi looked up from his orange book and clapped along with them, although he probably wasn't listening to whatever was going on.

"Ahem, as I was saying," Dumbledore said, although everyone was still staring at the scarred man who now sat himself in the empty chair between to Kakashi and Hagrid, "we are you have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that hasn't been held in over a century—"

"He really does get to the point, doesn't he?" Naruto muttered.

"—It is my very great pleasure to tell you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place here this year."

There was a brief moment of silence as everyone in the Great Hall digested this new bit of information.

"Holy mother of Merlin!" Ron cried out with the rest of the students.

"What is it?" Naruto asked.

"The Triwizard Tournament! It's been banned for the last two centuries because of the death toll and they're bringing it back! To Hogwarts! HERE! _ON THIS CAMPUS_! People fight monsters, do tasks, and do other stuff! And the winner always gets some prize. Money! Gold! Galleons! Riches! The big prize is one thousand plus galleons! I wanna enter!"

And, as if hearing this comment, Dumbledore shot down Ron's ecstatic soul. "Due to the number of deaths in the Triwizard Tournament, this year, it will be much safer. There will be fully trained medic-wizards standing by, a group of highly trained wizards, and an Age line. You must be seventeen or older to join. Students only. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving some time in October. While they are here, I expect you to be on good behavior and _not_ to pull any dangerous pranks."

Ron and the twins sighed forlornly.

"Feel free to eat desert, and then the Prefects will lead you back to your House," Dumbledore said.

Naruto sighed. There was no ramen on the table.

Hinata watched him curiously. A piece of fish appeared on her plate and she ate it piece by piece.

"What's wrong Naruto?" she asked him.

"They don't have any ramen here," he said with a shrug.

"Just think that you want it and you'll get it. Like this." A bowl of ramen appeared on her side. She handed it to him, cheering silently. No stutter! Hooray!

Naruto grinned, Hinata blushed, and Ino raised a brow. '_Hm…more romance and no action, and Ino-chan's gonna hafta play the cupid…_'

"I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy," the platinum haired boy said to Sasuke.

"Great," he said, between bites. Now that he and Naruto were officially not enemies, he would have to train harder. As difficult as it was to believe, Naruto wasn't weak anymore. He had gotten much stronger during his two year absence. Kankurou stared.

"Dude, you eat like a pig." Sasuke was shoveling as much food as possible into his mouth. He needed more energy so he could train and become stronger. At Kankurou's comment, he remembered their first C-rank mission when they were at Tazuna's home in the Land of Waves. He and Naruto were competing in who could master the tree climbing faster after Sakura. They puked right after.

Sasuke made a face at that memory. A silly thing to do, really, remembering the past. When people still trusted him.

"Whatever," Kankurou muttered, although he did bother to slow down his pace. If he choked, Temari would probably point, laugh, and make a stupid joke at his funeral.

Sasuke went back into silent mode. First item of business—he would have to train outside. There was no way he could train inside without breaking anyone—erm, anything. Triwizard Tournament, eh? If he fought with other wizards and experimented discovered his strengths and weaknesses fighting these people, perhaps it would be a good…challenge.

Second, he wasn't completely rid of the cursed seal. He needed to find new techniques that he could use. Shikamaru mentioned something about studying from books they had bought. Perhaps he could learn a few of these people's "spells", although with everything he had seen so far, he wasn't really impressed. Weren't there any powerful spells here?

Third item of business: Itachi. Itachi was never going to find him here. While skimming through _Hogwarts, A History_, they mentioned something of a spell to keep intruders out. He doubted it would have much of an effect on the Akatsuki. They were really strong. But if the spells were stronger, Itachi would never come. But Naruto…and Gaara. They were after both Naruto and Gaara. If he somehow led them to Hogwarts, he could finally meet and kill his brother.

(3) But why did they want those two boys? He knew that Gaara had an amazing creature inside of him. A demon. But what about Naruto? He certainly didn't have anything demonic in him. Or did he?

Almost three years ago during the chuunin exams, Naruto had harnessed an amazing amount of chakra. He had been sealed by Neji's attack, but had somehow managed to find another source of chakra other than his body. Of course, it was possible that Neji could have made a mistake and actually _helped_ Naruto gain more chakra with the sacrifice of several moments without it. But that wasn't very likely. And then, after the tournament when the Sabaku siblings attacked, Naruto—who should have been exhausted and completely depleted of all chakra—had gone after Gaara when Sasuke had gone down. He summoned a giant frog!

Sasuke knew how hard it was to summon such a large creature. He himself had barely managed to summon Manda, the giant snake, after a whole year of training under Orochimaru.

"Hey, you," Draco said maliciously. "Stop ignoring me!"

Sasuke snapped out of his angsty lost-in-thought mode and looked up at the not really menacing figure that stood across from him at the table.

"Huh?"

"What are you, stupid?" Draco said. "I _said_ I _won't_ tolerate any fraternizing with the enemy!"

"Enemy...?" Sasuke's eyes lit up at the sound of a powerful enemy.

"GRYFFINDOR!" Draco said, with his eyes popping out of his head. Not literally. But Sasuke would have liked to poke them out with his stick.

"What makes them the enemy?" Sasuke asked. Out of the table, he was the only one paying attention to the boy, who was rapidly losing his moment of grandeur. He wasn't impressing this group with his intimidation as he had hoped.

"They're obnoxious mudbloods and wizards who consort with the enemy!"

"And again, what enemy?" Provoking this guy made him look a bit more normal. He was albino. Making him turn red from yelling would be a major improvement.

"THE MUDBLOODS!"

Several Hufflepuffs sitting at the table next to them and Gryffindors at the right stared at Draco menacingly. Sasuke smirked. This guy was almost as dumb as Naruto.

"What are you smirking about?"

"You remind me of a stupid blond I know," Sasuke said. Kankurou and Temari snorted into their pudding, knowing exactly who he was talking about.

"Well you remind me of a…of a snobbish bloodtraitor with a stupid scar on his forehead!" Malfoy shot back. Who? Gaara looked up from his steak, with a scowl that almost said, '_Who, me?_'

"You're a traitor! You don't belong in Slytherin. Join your friends in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw!"

'Traitor'… Sasuke's taboo word. He fingered the wand in the back of his pocket. It was too dull to properly stab him with it, but it _could_ leave painful bruises if he stabbed hard enough with it.

"HI, SASUKE!" Malfoy was nearly trampled by two girls and a boy.

"I'm not in the same House as you...!" the girls cried out tearfully.

"I'm gonna beat you Sasuke-bastard!" the boy said.

"Who are you?" Draco asked them.

"I am Yamanaka Ino!" Ino said, letting loose her long blond hair like how she did with Neji when they encountered each other in the Forest of Death. "Beauty of Konohagakure!" Many people stared in awe. Not only was this girl beautiful, but she and Malfoy could have been siblings! And they both had an ego the size of a house!

"Her name means PIG!" the pink haired girl said. "I'm Haruno Sakura, the powerful and elegant kunoichi of Konoha Village. Better than Ino!"

"Shut up, Forehead-san! You need to shrink your forehead. I've got just the needle to pop it!" Ino growled, brandishing her wand.

"That's no needle," a Slytherin said uncertainly, watching the argument behind him. They ignored him.

"Oi, porker! You're too weak! Sasuke-kun would _never_ fall in love with you!"

"It's better than being as strong as a giant of a man!"

The blond boy with the whiskers ignored them. "Oi, Sasuke, I met Harry Potter," he said.

Draco stiffened at that name. He hated that stupid, scarred bastard! And not only that! The blond boy had dragged Harry over to the table! He's on Slytherin turf now! Bwahahahaha! Malfoy's thoughts were interrupted by Naruto's comment.

"He's got a fifty year old perverted snake fag after him too! You two could bond and become best of friends, as long as you don't try killing him to—erk!"

What was that?

Sasuke hit Naruto in the face.

"Hey!" Harry said. "What's up with you?"

"Go away," Sasuke said.

"Sasuke-bastard, I'll get you for that!" Naruto cried as a boy with a bowlcut, thick eyebrows, and spherical eyes dragged him away. A little red fox followed them both.

"_Oyasuminasai_," a white-eyed, blue haired girl said with a wave.

"Huh?" Draco had no idea what the heck she had just said. And was she blind? Her eyes were white, but she was surprisingly well coordinated.

"Sakura, Ino, go to your tables or houses or whatever," Sasuke said coolly. "Stop bothering me. I am in no mood to be spoken to right now."

Draco smirked. Sasuke didn't like that. "Heh, you _are_ a real Slytherin," he said.

"No. I like Naruto better than I like you," Sasuke said. "_Baka_," he added with an afterthought. At least when he said he didn't want to talk to _anybody_, Naruto would understand that everybody—including Naruto himself—was in the Anybody group.

"Huh?"

Stupid blonds. He hated them, although Ino wasn't too bad. But that wasn't the case. Not only was this guy a blond, but it looked like this guy _waxed_ his hair. What the hell? And this one didn't even respond to the insult. Not much of an insult, but this guy just wasn't funny. Yes, he liked Naruto much better than this guy.

"I'm leaving," Gaara said suddenly.

"I'm coming with you!" Temari said. Kankurou stood up too. Shino looked around at Sasuke. There was no way in hell they were going to get left behind with these people.

And so, the shinobi went to their House.

* * *

The Gryffindors went through a maze of stairwells and hallways, heading to the common room. Akamaru was in Kiba's robes, sitting snugly inside. Vulpes was on Naruto's shoulder, occasionally placing its paw on his head or sometimes up his nose.

"So what are house elves?" Naruto asked some of the original students who seemed to understand what was going on. He swatted at the fox on his head.

"They're elves," Ron answered plainly. "Who work in houses. And other buildings."

"Hence the word house elves," Kiba muttered at his dimwitted friend.

"It's slavery," Hermione muttered. "It's wrong, just plain wrong! I'm not going to eat anything made by the cruelty of enslavement."

Ron shrugged. Vulpes walked between Naruto's feet, nearly making him trip and fall. That dumb fox.

"Oh...so... what's the Triwizard Tournament?" Naruto asked.

"Idiot," Kiba snorted. "It's a contest. Wizards do things in it. The old man spent half the dinnertime talking about it, although it's not as if you were listening anyway."

"Oh, I get it!" Naruto said. Tournament! If he wins, it'll be victory over Sasuke! "I'm gonna win this thing!"

"You have to be seventeen to join," Hermione said. "Only adult wizards are allowed to enter. Dumbledore said so."

"What! But I _am_ grown up!" Naruto pouted.

"You're only, what, thirteen?"

"Fourteen! I've got a baby face! I'm almost fifteen, though," he said.

"We are considered adults the moment we graduate from academy and become genins," Hinata explained.

"What's that?" Hermione asked.

"Like…junior 'wizards'. The lowest level, aside from Academy. What Naruto still is." Naruto made a face at that comment.

"You're the weakest?" Ron asked the blond.

"Am not!"

"Dead last," Kiba snickered.

"What do you mean by that?" Ron said.

"Shut up, Kiba," Naruto said. "I beat you in the prelims."

"Preliminaries?"

"We all took the chuunin exams two years ago. Naruto and Kiba fought in the preliminary matches and Naruto won."

"So then he's not that weak?"

"It wasn't fair! He farted in my face!"

Ron, Fred, and George snorted. "(4) _Damate_!" Naruto cried indignantly. Hinata smiled.

"Hey, just wondering," Harry said, "but what's with the whiskers?"

"I have them," Naruto said, not really answering the question. "But if you think that's weird, you should take a look at Neji's forehead."

"Naruto-kun, Neji doesn't like it when people talk about it," Hinata said.

"But he's not here," Naruto said. Looking at Hinata, he shrugged. "Fine, fine. Wait, I might have whisker marks, but why does Kiba have triangles?"

"It's a family thing," Kiba said although he didn't really know why either.

"Your dad doesn't have it. Only your mom and sister do. Hey, are you a girl, Kiba?"

"Oh, shut it, Naruto!"

"Nyah!" Naruto stuck his tongue out at Kiba.

"Argh!" Neville suddenly got a lot shorter.

Wait, no he didn't. His leg was stuck in the steps. Naruto grabbed his arm to pull him up and then...got stuck in it himself.

"Oi, baka..." Ino muttered, still in a bad mood.

Hinata pulled them up easily.

"Wow, you're strong!" Fred said.

Hinata smiled nervously.

"She got our Hokage's super strength!" Naruto said, rubbing his sore leg. He shook it off and continued walking. "She's not as crazy strong as Sakura, but I still think she's better! And that's good, because Sakura hits me really hard..." He sniffed.

"Here's the House," Fred said.

"Where?"

"Balderdash," George said.

"_Nani_?" Naruto scratched his head. The picture frame he was walking by suddenly swung forwards, knocking him down. "OW! Holy kage!"

"I got the password from a prefect," George said, snickering as Naruto recovered from his collision.

He was amazed by what he saw inside. It was like the Leaky Cauldron! Only better. There were four poster beds! With little drape thingies on them! Each bedroom was big and had five of the beds in each one! A fire in the fireplace managed to warm up the whole circular common room, which was full of comfortable armchairs and tables.

"Slave labor..." Hermione muttered.

Hinata immediately headed to the doors on the right. Surprisingly, she flopped down on her bed and not in someone else's room. No one else knew, but she was going in overload mode. '_I-I-I didn't stutter I didn't stutter! S-speech therapy really works! Naruto-kun you are my inspiration!_' (AN: I know Hinata doesn't talk like that, but I'm guessing that after two years of exposure to Sakura, she's developed an Inner Hinata herself.)

"How'd she know which was hers?" Hermione asked, outside of the room.

"She probably saw that no one else's stuff was in here," Chouji said, still eating. Where was he getting all these foods? Normal bags of chips didn't last that long…"

"How could she know that?" Hermione said. "It's not as if she has X-ray vision, or something, does she."

"X-ray vision? Like seeing bones? Yea—"

"Well I was thinking more along the lines of seeing through walls, but yes."

"Well—" Kiba said. Akamaru barked.

"Shut up, Kiba," Ino said. They weren't supposed to talk about their mission and their abilities anymore. Not on campus anyway.

"What are you talking about?" Hermione asked.

"Hey, what's Kakashi doing here anyway?" Ino asked suddenly.

"Uh...he's just here?"

"No seriously, he's not a student. What's he going to do while we're here?"

"I don't know..." Naruto said thoughtfully.

"I know! He is regaining his lost youth by companying his youthful students!" Lee said.

"Right," Kiba said. "And Akamaru is a cat." Akamaru growled. "That wasn't an insult, it was sarcasm."

"Oi, Hinata!" Naruto said, running towards where Hinata had gone in. He began to run up the small flight of stairs. "Do you know wha—gack!"

The stairs flattened, becoming a slide, and began to emit a shrill siren.

"What the hell?" Naruto cried, rubbing his rear, which he had landed so ungracefully on.

"Girls can go into the boy's dormitory if they want," Hermione said, "but boys can't enter the girl's rooms. It's always been this way. Haven't any of you read Hogwarts, A History?"

"No."

Hinata peaked her head out of the doorway.

"Come on out," Naruto said.

"Okay," Hinata said. She had changed back into her thick jacket.

"You change fast," Naruto commented. She blushed.

"It's just more comfortable than the robes," she said. It felt so much warmer with the jacket and made things feel less threatening. "Ano…did you want something?"

"Yeah, do you know what Kakashi's doing here?"

"No."

"Oh, okay."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Yeah..." Naruto said, trying to fill in the silence. "I know what we could do! Let's go visit Gaara in Slytherin!"

"What?" Fred said.

"Come again?" George asked.

"Let's visit Gaara?"

"He's in the Slytherin House," Harry said. "We don't go into other people's Houses." He didn't mention that fact that he and Ron had actually entered once, disguised as Malfoy's stooges, to find out more information on the Chamber of Secrets.

"Why not?"

"We don't like them, and they don't like us," George said.

"Get caught in a crowd of them and you're dead meat, my friend," Fred said. "They'll eat you alive." Naruto made a face. Cannibalistic students! "No, not literally…"

"Tomorrow, we start our classes," Hermione said. "So let's go to sleep so we can actually wake up tomorrow. Good night, Harry, Ron, Fred, George, and shinobi."

* * *

"Are you blind?" a young Slytherin asked Shino.

"…"

"Are you mute?" he asked Shino.

"…"

"Are you ignoring me?"

"…" Shino walked in the other direction as if he hadn't heard. He wasn't listening anyway. He was too preoccupied with the information he was gathering from his bugs. A fly landed on his index finger. Hm…nothing really that significant to report...

The Moody professor leg and eye did not belong to him and the blue eye that did not belong to him could see through the back of his head.

Kakashi was reading _Icha Icha Paradise_. The lucky bastard had his own room. And an office too.

Lee, Naruto, Hinata, Kiba, Chouji, and Ino were with the common rooms, although they were separating and going to bed.

Naruto's newest pet wasn't a normal fox. It had chakra and it was learning...things.

In Hufflepuff, nobody he knew was there. Shino was not interested. His bugs left that house.

In Ravenclaw, Shikamaru was pretending to be asleep as he listened to Hogwarts students speak, perfecting his mastery over the English language, although it was hardly needed with the hitai-ate headbands they wore.

Sakura was reading some book. _Howarts, A History_? Boring. Useless.

Neji and Tenten were hanging out together, talking about some training for Tenten.

In the Slytherin common room, Temari and Kankurou were arguing, attracting the attention of many other students.

"I do not have your make up!" Temari shouted.

"Face paint!" Kankurou said angrily. "I didn't say make up. FACE PAINT!"

"Whatever! Don't you dare go looking through my bags! KANKUROU! I'll KILL you goddammit!"

"What, I doubt Gaara has it! He CAN'T have it! All he's got on him is two robes, a wand, and SAND! Yes, he has my make—_face paint_ in his gourd of sand! That makes total sense!"

"Well I don't have it, you loser!"

"Stupid wind witch!"

"Ugly old man!"

"I'm only one year older than you!"

"Does it matter! You're sixteen years old, and you play with dolls!"

"Puppets! They're PUPPETS, and they kick ass! Besides, all you've got is an oversized fan!"

"It fits me better. I'm a girl. Do puppets fit you because you're just a little baby? Well, you sure don't look like one, although I have to say, you really do think like one, stupid."

"I'm not stupid!"

"Oh, well then you're about as smart as Naruto!"

"Take that back!"

"You freaking bastard!"

"Stupid bitch!"

"Dumb fag!"

The Slytherins sighed, covering the innocent ears of their first years, mentally noting to avoid these two.

"No!" They wrestled a bit when a menacing smaller boy approached them.

"Temari," Gaara said. "Kankurou..."

"Yes, little brother?" they whimpered.

"Shut up."

He left.

"That was a lot less violent than usual," Temari commented.

"He's been exposed to Naruto," Kankurou said. "Happy Gaara is coming back, thank the kages."

"Happy Gaara?" Sasuke asked. Temari and Kankurou jumped. Egads! Where did he come from?

"Not so Happy as just not-on-a-killing-streak," Temari answered him with a sigh.

* * *

The first class Naruto had for the day was Herbology. He, Kiba, and Hinata shared a strange looking plant. It seemed to be pulsing. Sitting at a nearby table was Chouji, Ino, and Lee. On their other side was Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

"This thing is _pulsing_," Naruto said, looking pale.

"Get out your dragonhide gloves. The bubotubers need squeezing," the professor, a short and plump-ish looking woman said. Naruto frowned. Bubotubers? Squeezing? This didn't sound good.

"You will collect the pus and—"

"NANI! Pus!"

"Yes, Uzumaki, the pus. Anyway, we will be giving it to Madam Pomfrey. They make for good medicine and cures, like acne. Let us hope that no incident like Eloise Midgen happens again."

One of the girls sighed sympathetically.

"Yeah, poor Eloise. She tried to curse hers off."

"Well what matters is that Madam Pomfrey was able to get her nose back on in the end," she said. Naruto looked at the pulsing…plant? He shivered. Eeew.

Naruto ran out of the next class, completely grossed out by the green, sickly pus that emitted from the plants' pores. He was twitching and running around. Vulpes, who was currently sitting on Hinata's shoulders, watched, looking quite amused.

"What's our next class?" Hinata asked Harry.

"Ah, Care with Magical Creatures with Hagrid," Harry said excitedly. "Hm, he's got some new assistant… Anyway, Hagrid's the big guy who was sitting at the table up front with Dumbledore and the other teachers."

"The one who could step on me?" Naruto said. "Wow, cool!"

"Hello, Harry, Hermione, Ron," Hagrid greeted them when they came. "Hi…urm…new students."

"It's Kiba, Naruto, Ino, Chouji, Hinata, and Lee," a voice said.

"Kakashi-sensei!" they all said.

"Yo." He gave them a little wave. He must have been grinning under his mask because his eyes closed. "Hey, kids, you know what?"

"What?" they asked.

"You're going to have a lot of fun today!" Kakashi cackled evilly. His eyes glinted. They sweatdropped. Kakashi was so…scary today. He was spending way too much time with Kurenai.

They realized that they were in the same session with the Slytherin House through the identification coming from screaming fangirls.

"Hiiii, Saaaasuuuukkkeee!" Ino cried. Sasuke froze. He looked like he was about to bolt at the sound of her voice. He was about to run away when he ran into another mob of girls. Oh no! It was his newly organized Slytherin fanclub! Founded overnight by some Parkinson girl, it had immediately began attracting a horde of demons bearing heart shaped figures inside their eyes (like in anime and stuff). It was rather alarming. This was Konohagakure all over again! He almost escaped when he found Kakashi grabbing the back of his shirt.

"Trying to cut class, Sasuke?" Kakashi asked him. "It's only been your first day. Sit. _Now_." Ugh, the creepy essence of Kurenai…only no pair of red eyes. Just one.

"Well, class," Hagrid said. "We've got our orders. Come and see our…Blast-Ended Skrewts!" He revealed several crates and the whole class backed away.

"What...Is...That?" Naruto said. Kiba passed out. The smell had been too great. They looked like…shell-less lobsters. With stingers. And a suction cup on their belly.

"Blast-Ended Skrewts. You'll be helping me raise them."

"What for?" Malfoy asked. Lee fumed. This unyouthful wizard was in the same class as he! He must avoid him at all costs. Should his anti-youthful attitude be contagious, Gai-sensei would be so disappointed in him!

"Ah...urm...that's for next lesson!" Hagrid said enthusiastically. "Now, wear your dragonhide gloves and stick these on your skrewts," Hagrid said, pulling out several tiny, handmade leashes. Naruto sulkily pulled out his pus soaked gloves. Groooooss. "We'll jus' be feedin' them terday."

"Where do we tie it on them?" Hinata asked, summoning all her courage to speak to this very…_very_ large man.

"Ahm, on the tail behind the stinger, I suppose," he said.

"What are these?" Kiba said, still pinching his nose and prodding at a suction cup on their belly with his other hand.

"Suckers, I think," Hagrid said. "Don't touch 'em, they'll probably take your blood." Kiba immediately withdrew his hands from the crate.

Several minutes had gone by when Naruto let out a cry.

"Argh! It exploded!" Naruto removed the dragonhide gloves and threw it to the ground, cradling his hand.

"What? No!" Hagrid cried. He strode over and found Naruto nursing his burnt hand.

"It stings!" Naruto yelped.

"Thank goodness, they're okay," Hagrid said, inspecting Naruto's skrewt. "Oh, I suppose I should have warned you. They spit a little bit of fire too."

"Great," Malfoy said sarcastically. "Who would want a pet that would sting, suck blood, and blow fire at the same time?"

As little as Naruto liked Malfoy, he had to agree.

"Well," Hermione said. "Dragons bite, scratch, blow fire, and can even be poisonous. They're magical, and their blood has amazingly magical abilities, but still, who would want a dragon for a pet? That's just plain crazy." A dragon? Who _wouldn't_ want one?

Hagrid gave her a hearty grin. "Alright, Mr. Uzumaki—"

"Naruto," Naruto interjected.

"Alright, Naruto," Hagrid said. "Let me see your hand."

He took Naruto's hand in his giant mits and inspected them closely. Barely a scar! It was rapidly disappearing. Not really quickly, but much faster than normal.

Kakashi tapped Hagrids arm, being unable to reach his shoulder.

"I'll take care of my student," he said, giving Hagrid a look. A few of the Gryffindors nearby noticed Hagrid's surprise and Kakashi's intended discretion. Kakashi pulled him away from the others and was talking to him.

Harry noticed several flies surface from Shino's heavy robes (why was he wearing his winter robes in the middle of August?) to head in their direction. Kiba's puppy Akamaru stood on Kiba's shoulders with his paws on his owner's head, sniffing and listening in their direction. Gaara closed his eyes and made a sign with his hands. Harry noticed a handful of sand rise from his gourd and head in their direction.

Harry wondered if the shinobi were usually so distrusting of one another, to resort to spying on their own companion. He wanted to ask them, but they might…do something to him. That and Naruto was already returning from his talk with Kakashi. Vulpes reappeared too. Where was he before?

"AAAAAAH!" Kiba cried angrily. "It bit me!" He nursed his hand and kicked the crate. Unfortunately, within moments of exposure to the skrewts and breathing in the scent, he passed out.

"How did that happen?" Ino wondered. "They don't have jaws." No one was successful in feeding the skrewts. Naruto, however, found it easier to force entry of salamander guts through another entry.

Kakashi sighed. Perhaps it would be a better idea to have a split class…one on Hagrid's side, and one on his own.

* * *

At lunch, Hermione was breathing in her lunch.

"Er, is this the new stand on elf rights?" Ron asked. "You're going to make yourself puke instead?"

Naruto smirked, distantly remembering his training in the Land of Waves with Sasuke. They ate so much, stubborn on regaining their strength, until they vomited it all back up. Gross, but funny nevertheless.

"I just want to get to the library."

"Homework on the first day?" Ron and Kiba asked her.

She shrugged and left, running at high speed, once she had finished. "See you at dinner!" she said.

The bell rang. Afternoon lessons. The fourth year Gryffindors stood up and headed for their next class. Harry sighed. Divination with Professor Trelawney next. Next to Potions, Trelawney's class was the worst. If she wasn't a quack, then Harry should have died so many times last year. It was pitiful.

They climbed up the silver stepladder and went through the circular trapdoor in the ceiling to the room where Professor Trelawney lived.

Kiba covered his nose at the scent of too-sweet perfume. How many classes would he have to take with these disgustingly powerful stenches lingering in the air!

"Good day..." a misty voice said.

"HOLY KAGE, A BIG BUG!" Naruto cried when he first saw her. Hinata gasped at his outburst, but couldn't help releasing a tiny giggle. Kiba snorted.

Her oversized glasses made her eyes fill up the whole lenses. She was all...bug-eyed. Kinda like Lee's. Lee with glasses.

"You are preoccupied, my dear," she said. "My inner eye sees past your brave face and Sees within a troubled mind. And I regret to say that your worries are not baseless. I see difficult times for you, alas...difficult times...I fear that the thing you dread will indeed come to pass...and perhaps sooner than you think..." Her voice faded off. Ron rolled his eyes until he realized who she was talking to.

She wasn't directing this comment towards Harry. It was...the table next to them. Hinata? Or maybe Naruto...

"Um...huh?" Naruto looked confused. Professor Trelawney squinted at him in the darkness. Uh oh...wrong kid. Uh...distraction.

"Oh! The Inner Eye sees another vision!" she cried loudly. "Harry…you are in grave danger. I see...death of a companion. A confrontation with two enemies. Snakes...and...other dangerous things..." She paused. What else to say...? "Beware of the...danger of...uh—fire!"

Harry sighed. Ron fell face flat on the table snickering. Lavender Brown and Pavarti Patil were in awe. Two students in grave danger in one year! What unfortunate luck!

"Oh I love this class," Naruto snorted, clutching his stomach laughing. Kiba and Lee messed with their crystal ball, making faces and laughing at the distorted reflections.

"Hey, your nose is big, but your eyebrows are normal," Kiba joked. "You might wanna try looking something like this!"

Naruto peered into the crystal with beady eyes. "I don't see anything. Oh wait, there's something white! Nevermind. It's the cloud in the crystal ball…"

Ino was looking at herself indignantly in the reflection, gaping at her disproportionate image. Chouji, sitting next to her eating his food, was not at all disturbed by the sight of his extra wide frame. It was aaaaaaall in his head. ((AN: keep telling yourself that dear. Denial—a great weight loss solution))

"Ahm...I've got two Neptunes in my sky chart..." Harry said. "I think something's wrong..."

"Ah…" Ron said, imitating Trelawney's airy voice. "Two Neptunes in the sky—a sure sign that a midget in glasses is being born." Seamus and Dean, on their other side, laughed loudly, ignoring the disapproving glare that Trelawney gave them. Too many jokes in one class…

"Ah ha! I see…Mercury! I see it I see it!" Naruto said excitedly.

"Ano… That's the moon."

"I knew that!" Naruto said loudly. Kiba laughed.

"Oooh!" Lavender Brown squealed. "I see Uranus!"

"Ooh, can I see Uranus?" Ron asked her in a sweet voice.

And then, Professor Trelawney underwent a complete personality switch.

"A detailed analysis of the way the planetary movements in the coming month will affect you, with reference to your personal chart," she snapped, sounding much more like Professor McGonagall than her usual airy-fairy self. "I want it ready to hand in next Monday, and no excuses!"

Naruto groaned.

* * *

"Weasley! Hey Weasley!" Malfoy called, holding up a magazine of the _Daily Prophet_. "Look, your family is on the front cover!

**FURTHER MISTAKES AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC**

_It seems as though the Ministry of Magic's troubles are not yet at an end. Recently under fire for its poor crowd control at the Quidditch World Cup, and still unable to account for the disappearance of one of its witches, the Ministry was plunged into fresh embarrassment yesterday by the antics of Arnold Weasley, of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office." _

Malfoy looked up from the magazine.

"Imagine them not even getting his name right, Weasley. It's almost as though he's a complete nonentity, isn't it?" he sneered. Everyone was listening now.

_Arnold Weasley, who was charged with possession of a flying car two years ago, was testerday involved in a tussle with several Muggle law-keepers ("policemen") over a number of highly aggressive dustbins. Mr. Weasley appears to have rushed to the aid of "Mad-Eye" Mood, the aged ex-Auror who retired from the Ministry when no longer able to tell the difference between a handshake and an attempted murder. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Weasley found, upon arrival at Mr. Moody's heavily guarded house, that Mr. Moody had once again raised a false alarm. Mr. Weasley was forced to modify several memories before he could escape from the policement, but refused to answer the _Daily Prophet_ questions about why he had involved the Ministry in such an undignified and potentially dangerous scene._

"And there's a picture, Weasley!" Malfoy said, flipping the paper over and holding it up. "A picture of your parents outside of their house—if you can call it a house! You mother could do with losing a bit of weight, couldn't she?"

Ron was shaking with fury. Everyone was staring at him.

"Get stuffed, Malfoy," Harry said. "C'mon, Ron…"

"Oh yeah, you were staying with them this summer, weren't you, Potter? Don't really have a family yourself, so I suppose you act like _they're_ your fam—"

All of a sudden, Naruto was in Malfoy's face. He jumped back, only to find another Naruto behind him. What? The first one disappeared. His hands made the sign of the tiger.

"I learned the real one from Jiraiya who taught this to Yondaime who taught this to Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto said. "The newly mastered…1000 Years of PAIN!"

And then Naruto gave Malfoy the most painful asspoke in history. The students all around them laughed at Malfoy's loud yelp as he flew ten feet in the air and landed ten feet away.

"Hm...not as effective as Kakashi's..." Naruto muttered.

"That just looks like you stuck a hot poker up his butt," Hermione said. "Just how effective could that be in real life?"

"Just how effective? JUST HOW EFFECTIVE!" Naruto repeated loudly. "_I helped save Konoha with that very same jutsu! I destroyed half of the demon Shukaku's body with that technique!_"

"And then its body came back as normal as ever," a cool voice said.

"Eh? Oh, hi Gaara!" Naruto said, jumping on his friend only to land on a thick cushion of sand. Wait, a cushion? No, correction: it was more like a wall. A very hard and compact wall.

"How'd you do that?" Fred asked.

"Magic," Gaara said sarcastically. And then he realized the irony in what he said. "Ah, jutsu. Same thing."

"Was that a joke?" Naruto asked.

"No, it was sarcasm, you idiot."

"You made a joke!"

"I did not…!"

"Did too!"

"Did not."

"Did too!"

'Did not."

"Did t—"

"Shut up already!" Sand trickled from the floor and Gaara's eye seemed to be twitching as Naruto ducked for cover. Waah, Angry Gaara's back…!

"Hey, I'm injured here!" Malfoy said.

"Hey, we're talking here!" Naruto called back.

"Shikamaru!" Temari cried, running towards her Shikamaru.

'_Oh…_' He was encased in a powerful hug that nearly knocked the breath out of his lungs. This girl had too much strength. And energy. But the position he was in was very comfortable.

"Temari, it looks like your boyfriend's getting all woozy," Tenten warned. "I think you're suffocating him."

"Hey…!" Malfoy said.

Shikamaru was turning red. She released him with a laugh. "You need to get stronger," she said.

"Stop ignoring me…!"

He wiped his nose. "You need to stop strangling me, woman," he muttered. Good, no one sees the blood at his nose. Then again, Gaara and Kankurou were shooting very angry stares at him. He shuddered inwardly, not wanting to know what sort of painful death they were thinking up of him not. It wasn't his fault she was... so developed for a fifteen year-old girl.

"I'm huuuungry!" Naruto cried out. "Hurry up!"

"Idiot," Sasuke said. "Let's go." Everyone left for the Great Hall.

They left Malfoy on the floor in the halls.

* * *

It was finally dinner time, to Naruto's great relief. "Foooood," he drooled. Vulpes snatched food off his plate playfully. Was it him, or had the conniving fox quit attacking him? It jumped on his head, as if sneering,

'_Yeah, right._' It bit his ear.

"YOOOWWW HOOLY FU—"

"Don't you dare hit that fox, Naruto!" Ino cried, landing a punch in Naruto's face as he began to toss it down onto the table. Did Vulpes just snicker at him? Naruto clutched his head and frowned at the fox.

"Hey..." Sakura said, going over to the Gryffindor table. She had already finished eating. "What's with all of Gaara's owls?"

"Huh?" Naruto turned around and saw Gaara sitting crossly, glaring as dozens of owls flew to his table. Some perched on his gourd, some on the table, and one was even bold enough to land on his head. But that didn't seem to be what he was all angry about. He coughed up his drink when he read the first letter.

"Idiots!" they heard him growl as he finished another note.

"What's that?" Temari asked.

"The Makotos! They destroyed the onsen! And their shop is down for maintenence! And Baki breathed in their rat scent! He thinks he's a rodent! He'll...be stuck like that for a week! And all of these damage reports... billed to me! I'LL MURDER THEM AND HANG THEIR CARCASSES IN MY OFFICE!" he growled.

"Wow," a boy said.

"Yeah," Naruto muttered. "Gaara... he's like that."

"No, not what I meant," the boy said, shaking his head.

"What?" Harry said.

"Moody, man. Professor Moody," he said.

"He's awesome," Fred (or George) said.

"Beyond awesome," the other twin said. "He _knows_."

"Knows what?" Ron asked, irritated by their vagueness.

"What it's like to fight the Dark Arts," Fred said excitedly. Ron flipped in his schedule excitedly and found that he didn't have Defense Against Dark Arts until Friday. He groaned.

"Who are you?" Naruto asked the other boy.

"Lee. Lee Jordan. Announcer for the quidditch matches," he said with a little bow.

"Wow! Rock _Lee_ and _Lee_ Jordan!" Naruto said. "How cool!"

"What's so cool about that?" Kiba retorted. "It's a bit common like that."

"Well I never met anyone named Naruto!" Naruto said.

"Well duh," Kiba sneered. "What kind of crackpot parents would name their kid fishcake?"

"The Sandaime named me himself, mutt." Naruto glared. Unlike his usual happy-go-lucky sense of humor and his usual playful glares, this was a sensitive subject. Kiba tried to match Naruto's glower and found himself unable to maintain eye contact for too long.

Hinata looked away too. Naruto left.

"Naruto doesn't have parents," she told Kiba. "He doesn't like to think about it or to talk about it with anyone."

"Who's Sandaime?" Lee said.

"Ano…I suppose the right word would be…president? Ah...he is the leader of the Fire Country."

Fire Country?

"He was killed a little over three years ago."

"Oh…" Awkward silence.

"Yeah," she said. "I think I'll go after hi—" She turned around and Kakashi appeared out of nowhere. Great timing. He went 'poof' and appeared right when she turned around. She bumped into him.

"Ah, gomenasai, Kakashi-sensei," she said with a bow.

"No worries, I came here at the wrong time. Where's Naruto?"

"Ano…I think he went back to the common room in our House."

"Oh, missed him then," he said. "Alright I'll—"

"Do you need something, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Oh, it's just that the Chuunin exams are coming up in a month and I thought he'd probably want to know about it so he can train a bit. And this package came for him. The owl couldn't find him, so it gave it to me instead. Anyway, so Naruto is in the common room? I…don't know where that is. I guess I'll just tell him to—"

"We'll tell him!" Hinata said.

"Okay." He gave her a large box (where did it come from!) and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

"Hinata, you just set yourself up for that one!" Kiba cried. "Now you're doing errands for him? What's next, cleaning his office?"

"Ano… I-I just wanted to give it to Naruto," she said to Kiba. "D-d-don't you want to come? I'm sure he'd be happy with this."

Kiba sighed. "Come on, Akamaru," he said. "You're finished eating, right?"

Akamaru barked.

* * *

Naruto was supposed to be doing his work. Divination. Bleh. He was doodling little swirls on his parchment, realized that he was wondering off task, and crumpled up the paper.

The picture frame door swung open, admitting Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Seconds later, Ino, Hinata, Kiba, Lee, and Chouji came running in.

"Need help?" Harry said.

"Eh…" Naruto shrugged.

"Just write down something bad happening for every day of the week. It'll work. Trust me."

Ron snickered.

"Naruto-kun!" Hinata said excitedly. Vulpes wagged his tail. Was it a fox or a dog?

"Kakashi-sensei has a package for you," she said.

"Chuunin exams come in a week," Kiba muttered. Naruto grinned, surprising Kiba. Wasn't he angry?

"Chuunin exams! I'm gonna pass this one! Yeah!" Naruto pumped his fists up in the air.

"What's that?" Neville asked.

"It's a test that we take back at home every six months to become chuunins!" Lee said. "Two years ago, Shikamaru was the only one to pass! The next one, Neji, Kiba, Hinata, Shino, and the Sand siblings all passed. The six months after that, I recovered and passed—through the power of hard work—and Sakura-chan, and Tenten-chan passed. After that, Chouji and Ino finally participated, and they passed! Only Naruto and Sasuke have not passed!"

"Why not?" Ron said. He wasn't so sure about Naruto, but Sasuke had that essence of…strength around him.

"We had a two year absence from Konoha," Naruto said simply, although the look in his eyes told them that that was all he was going to say about it.

"Hey, do you think Sasuke-kun got one of these?" Ino asked them.

"Maybe," Kiba said. "Everyone's still wary of him. If not this one, maybe the next?"

Vulpes sniffed the box curiously.

"Oh! Yeah," Naruto said. "Almost forgot. I wonder what's in here…?" He looked at the signature on the box and shuddered. It was signed THE GREAT JIRAIYA-SAMA in big bold letters.

"He sent you a present!" Lee said excitedly. Naruto frowned. This had better not be _another_ volume of _Icha Icha Paradise_… A bribe to use the Orioke no Jutsu as his...inspiration. training outfit...

He opened the box. Inside that was a letter and another box. He ignored the letter and opened that box to find another one. And inside that box was ANOTHER box. This went on for a while until Naruto just went ahead and dumped it all out on the floor. A small scroll fell out.

"No…way," Naruto whispered. He hadn't told his old friend that he had left Fire Country for an extended amount of time. Oops. Kurogane's probably really annoyed right now.

"Munch munch…what is that…?"

"I gotta go!" Naruto said. He ran into the bedroom, where Kiba and Akamaru followed him.

"Yo, don't lock the door! It's my room too!" Kiba said.

"Just hold on a minute!" Naruto said, storing the scroll somewhere safe where no one could see. He opened the door and came back out.

"What is that?" Ino asked impatiently. She received a sneaky foxlike grin in response.

"It's a seecreeet!"

"Dammit, Naruto, I wanna know!" Ino cried.

"Nyahahaha!" Naruto cackled, backing away.

"Oh no you don't!" Ino whipped out her wand and had a malicious glint in her eye… "Locomotor Mortis!" Naruto tripped and found his legs stuck together.

"What the hell?" He struggled in the common room to pull himself up as everyone watched in worry and/or amusement. "Help, I've fallen and I can't—ooh, nice carpet…"

"I learned that from Lavender," she said smugly. Ino sat herself on his back, looking at her nails casually. "I won't let you up until you spill the beans even if it kills me."

"Oh yeah…?" Unfortunately for her, Naruto's arms were not immobilized. "I taught Vulpes a new trick! Now!"

All of a sudden, a smoke bomb went off in the Gryffindor common room and everyone scattered.

"Now where do you suppose Naruto's gotten that smoke bomb, Fred?" George said jokingly. "Dumbledore always confiscates ours before we even step inside."

"I don't know," George said. "But I want some of his…"

"Eeeeeek!" someone cried. It was the cry of a panicked pig!

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Naruto's cackling could be heard somewhere in the room.

"Na-Naruto-kun…have you really been teaching Vulpes to do…that?"

Oops, he had forgotten that Hinata had her Byakugan.

"Ah…haha," he scratched his head. "Well, not really. He learned it on his own and did it to me, yeah?"

"Get it out of my robes NOW Naruto! I'm going to kill you, chop you up, and feed you to those skrewts."

"But they don't have any mou—argh!"

Hands appeared out of the smoke and grabbed Naruto.

"Egads! I've been caught!" But Naruto himself had become a cloud of smoke.

He and Vulpes, both laughing (the fox laughs!), ran out with Ino following close behind.

"That bastard I'll kill him!" Ino cried out in anger. Hinata was still in shock. This Naruto was as bad as the great prankster of Konoha three years ago…

In the middle of the night, while Kiba, Lee, and Chouji were sleeping, Naruto opened the envelope that he had received. Vulpes watched with wary eyes. While everyone was trying to wonder what the scroll was, Naruto was able to take the more important item. It was a letter from a friend. And an enemy.

_Chuunin exams will be held in Hidden Village of the Sand. Be prepared for a fight. Forming a team will not be necessary. Accommodations have been made. Your mission at Hogwarts, however, is just as important. Bring your companions with you. And avoid traveling alone, whether you are home or at Hogwarts. _

_Jiraiya-sensei, super pervert _

In the envelope was an eraser, like the one he had seen while shopping for school supplies. He rubbed it all over the paper and counted down from thirty. Finally.

_On October 10, Kyubi was sealed. The last demon lord fought Yondaime for his freedom. Honor Kyubi-sama's struggle for life and _don't die._ Your siblings wish for your well being. Warn Gaara, too. The Sound are gathering together as the Akatsuki approach. I have kept my ears close to the floor and hear rumors circulating of another enemy. One who calls himself the Dark Lord. He does not fight with normal jutsu. Like Orochimaru-sama, he has an affinity for snakes and hopes to achieve immortality. He can not die by normal means. He has developed a technique in which he hides his soul in pieces, virtually unkillable. Should you encounter an enemy like him, flee. I have not spoken to Orochimaru-sama for some time now, for I am traveling abroad on information gathering business. However, I believe that my master and this dark lord are temporarily allying themselves to target certain beings. Who, I am not sure. _

_Ironically, the day this message was sent to your little hut of an apartment in Konoha, you had already left to some game in the West. Thanks to you, I had to track to track down every 'wizard' game until I finally realized you actually were stupid enough to got to the biggest one in the West. Do you not realize that you are hunted by Akatsuki? By the time I sent another message there, you left to a Leaky Cauldron. And after that, you went to some wizard school! My bats are all exhausted because of you! Idiot of a ninja. At least tell your allies, public and hidden, where you go, you fool! And what the hell is Quidditch and Leaky Cauldron? _

_In any case, I have gathered very little news of Haruka and Hakoi. The cat Nekomata and the khoi Isonade have been missing for three months now. Fortunately, rumors circulating in the Sound speak something of an escape. The hosts may have died, but the Akatsuki have not completely obtained the two demon lords. Kisame, Isonade's abductor, has most definitely gained a large amount of chakra from Isonade, but it is questionable whether he has obtained _all_ of it. The kidnapper of Nekomata and her host is unknown, however, I am hoping that like Isonade, they are safe. _

_The information you have read prior to this message is true. The chuunin exams are in October first to October tenth. There will be no long tasks, such as traveling through the desert of some other forest of death. Be prepared for a small competition. Should you lose a battle against mere human genin, you will have lost the little respect you have gained from me, Kyubi host. And because you are on a mission, you are most likely to bring your companions with you. At times like these in both worlds, it would be a folly to separate from your team and your subject. _

_And beware of the Akatsuki. Do not underestimate their connections. If I know where you are currently residing they certainly do too. Your traitorous friend could probably bolt and go after his brother again. _

_Kurogane, host of Koumori, jounin of Sound _

_Know this: should the body of Kyuubi vessel be injured during battle, you are truly a worthless fool who calls himself a shinobi. Don't let me overestimate your abilities. Should you lose to anyone before me in real battle, I will kill you myself. _

_And also know that the scroll I have sent you is a summoning scroll. Open it and my quickest companion will come out to send me your response if any. If you do not respond, I will assume you to be dead. _

Naruto grinned at the note. One year ago, he and Kurogane had crossed each other's path while he and Jiraiya had been training. He had ditched Jiraiya somewhere on a mountain when he encountered three Sound nins and what appeared to be daimyo, or at least some very richly dressed individual. To Naruto, it looked like he was some captive. He easily wiped them out when the 'prince' himself attacked.

Kurogane was the host of Koumori, the demon bat. Koumori was never one of the nine demon lords. He wasn't even a century old. But there was no doubt that had he reached his fifth century, he would have definitely had the talent to challenge the status of one of the Tails.

Loyal to the Sound, Kurogane had fought Naruto valiantly, and lost. Demanding to know the identity of the mere child who had managed to defeat a vessel without any difficulty. Hearing the title 'Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage of Konoha!' he realized that he had finally found a fellow demon host. Not only that, but the host of the Demon Lord _Kyuubi._

But…he didn't bother to hide his disappointment. No, not disappointed. He was downright horrified. A loud, foulmouthed blond brat showing talent only near the end of the battle? He had expected the container of the great Kyuubi to be much more… mature. Serious. Disciplined. And most importantly…

Taller.

This boy didn't even reach his shoulder! Kurogane was horrified beyond words. He was the proud illustrious shinobi of the Sound, yet he had been defeated by a boy four years younger than him.

Nevertheless, being who he was, Naruto managed to "charm" the older vessel into helping a fellow, younger host into secretly allying themselves against the Akatsuki. Kurogane's newest dream, replacing being Orochimaru's right hand henchman, was to unite all the demon lords and their hosts and to control the world. He had given up on winning Orochimaru's favor. Now that he had his Uchiha, he was perfectly satisfied, and Kurogane was left out of the plans for world domination. If he couldn't be in on Orochimaru-sama's Team World Domination, he would just have to create his own.

Naruto reread the letter, feeling quite amused. And, apparently, Orochimaru's fetish for Sasuke had given Kurogane a feeling of resentment. After all, he had gone from one of the most cherished and feared shinobi in the Sound to an ordinary jounin. He always knew that Sasuke would come back to Konoha. Kurogane seemed also annoyed how Sasuke was continuously changing allies, unlike shinobi loyal to their own people. After all, he, from Konoha, ran to Orochimaru for power to go after Itachi. Once finding that Naruto's team was equally as powerful as he and Orochimaru and also outnumbered them, he returned to their side. Naruto himself had been annoyed by Sasuke's urge to become stronger at any cost, but this was his friend, and Sasuke was slowly becoming the Sasuke that he always knew and despised. A pleasant change, compared to the Sasuke he never knew and hated from the bottom of his heart—the Sasuke-gone-Avenger mode.

Apparently, Sasuke and Gaara were not the only ones changing after prolonged exposure to Naruto. Over the past months he and Kurogane had been talking, it seemed that he was falling for Naruto's foxlike charm, just like most of the other shinobi that Naruto had beaten the living crap out of (Neji, Sasuke, Konohamaru (eh…), Kiba, etc.). And was it him, or was Kurogane worried about him? He told him repeatedly not to get hurt, since he was the body of the Kyuubi. But…why send him information for the chuunin exams? And stay in a group? And at least he had some respect for Naruto now. A bonus person who respected him. Now for everyone ELSE in HIS village.

Hm…Naruto would have to remember to warn Gaara of the Akatsuki. Dark Lord? Snakes-but-not-Orochimaru? Sounded familiar. Haruka and Taka were still missing… Naruto frowned thinking of what to say in response to Kurogane's detached, overly formal letter. He grinned.

_On August 20, 2005, the Great Uzumaki Naruto writes a response to his stiff-ass goon, Kinuta Kurogane, host of Koumori, known as Ninja-With-Sunglasses-And-Moves-Like-He's-Got-A-Stick-Up-His-Ass. And in this famous letter, he wrote, 'HI KUROGANE! Wasssuuuuup! The most awesome demon lord and vessel tells his lowly henchman-vessel-of-a-nontail not to worry because any enemy who approaches me—erm, him, will be punished with 99 wedgies and death by butter knife! Muahahaha! He is now in possession two stupid foxes. One in his belly, and another that won't stop biting his leg ever since he attacked the Great Uzumaki Naruto at the Magical Menagerie.' He also said, "I can not and will not die! Because I am the future Hokage of Konoha!" And should I almost fall, my beloved demonic siblings—who are either assumed dead, countries apart, or not even knowing of my existence—will avenge my injuries, for I am too strong to be killed in battle. I am not worried. I'd warn Gaara, but he may kill me. Yes, my beloved demon brother. I'm scared of him. _

_Have I ever mentioned how cool your superhearing ears are? Yeah…anyway, I'll be more serious now. The person who is a dark lord or whatever sounds familiar, but I can't be all too sure. I'd ask my friend Shikamaru, but he'll probably tell me to think it myself or that he would end up finding out everything about everyone (yes, including the awesome demon hosts, you and I). Anyway, if I find any information regarding this dark lord, I'll relay it to you. Lucky you, having your messenger bats fly everywhere for you. All I have are toads, and the only one that's really REALLY strong thinks of me as an underling. Send me another messenger, please? You can't see it, but I'm giving you an innocently foxy grin and flashing my beautifully clear blue eyes at you. How can you resist? Haha, and don't act all high and mighty. I know you're worried about Taka and Haruka too, yeah? Or…I hope you are. Anyway, as for spare hosts, I think I have a good clue of one or two here at Hogwarts. Giving them a demon might make things easier for me a bit. Still…I doubt they'd like it. AAANNNDDD, I'm also wondering: do you even know how to seal a demon into a body? Because I don't… _

_It's a good thing they escaped. I'm glad. Thanks for telling me. I knew you cared! And thanks for the heads up for the chuunin exams. Don't worry. I won't loose to anyone. Our promise still stands. If I lose to anyone, it will be you. Of course, with the Akatsuki swarming about, you ought to get stronger fast, or else you'll have to wait in a looong line. And I think Sasuke might beat you to it if the Akatsuki come too. You can't see it, but I comically shudder. Yosh, he might even go into Angsty Avenger Mode. Anyway, once I've got your respect, I'm going to keep it, no matter how much you want it back, to ha ha! I, the Great Uzumaki Naruto, will lose to no one! _

_Anyway, the headmaster at this school is the strongest 'wizard' in the wizarding world. Well, except I think he's tied with someone…I can't remember… Oh well, but he's got a few centuries worth of spells and hexes and chrams and curses and junk like that on this castle place. And he's also the most powerful wizard in the world. Oh wait, I just wrote that down. I am EMPHASIZING his awesomeness then. Anyway, he's probably added a security measure or two during his 2495704857329745 years here anyway. Yeah, he's oooold! I hope your messenger bat doesn't pass out and die on your side. I've gotten pretty attached to Kou. Anyway, watch your own back, Batman (he's a muggle superhero that doesn't really have anything super about him except for his money and his gadgets, by the way, but he IS pretty cool). So if the Akatsuki kill you, you'll lose my respect too. _

_G.U.N. (THE GREAT UZUMAKI NARUTO), THE GUY HOLDING THE KYUUBI CAPTIVE, _

_GENIN (SOON TO BE CHUUNIN _

_AND THEN JOUNIN _

_AND THEN ANBU _

_AND THEN HOKAGE _

_OF KONOHA) _

_By the way, I got this little fox thing at some pet store. It likes sitting on my head and chewing my leg off. Got any anti-fox sprays? Because I've got two really annoying furballs everywhere I go, haha. And I think it can read because it's been watching what I've been writing (right now too) the whole time. And the moment I wrote 'anti-fox spray' and 'annoying furballs', it attacked (is attacking) me (right now). _

_I think it might be smart. _

Naruto rolled open the scroll and winced then a small cloud of smoke (and a ring of a chime) went off in his bed. Looking at Kiba, Akamaru, Lee, and Chouji, he found that, surprisingly, no one else had woken up. A tiny bat watched him. It tilted his head and nodded—his way of saying 'Yo'.

"Hey, Kouha," Naruto whispered. "I've got a message to send to Kuro."

It flicked its ears and held out its leg for Naruto for to tie the small envelop to.

It stared at him pointedly. "No, I've got no food," Naruto said. It snorted. "No, I'm not giving you my blood, Kouha. Just give the message to Kurogane."

"Loser," it muttered. Naruto opened the window and let it flap away.

Hinata, several rooms away, closed her eyes. Was Naruto a traitor?

* * *

(1) Oyasuminasai: Good night.  
(2) Kinda like a cat, right? Just don't get too used to the name. It's going to change. I was going to keep it Vulpes, but if it doesn't really _really_ belong to him, then wouldn't it have it's own name? Well it doesn't really, but 'Vulpes' doesn't like it and refers to itself by another name before it finally acknowledges Naruto. Also, note that Vulpes doesn't have a gender. You'll find out why soon, and then you'll get a more detailed explanation way later. I'll re-edit this post again once that chapter comes out too. Stick it in here. Or something.  
(3) No one seems to know that Naruto is the Kyubi's host.  
(4) Shut up!


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Lots of Letters

Pairings: Naruto X Hinata, Shikamaru X Temari, Neji X Tenten, Kakashi X Kurenai, Hermione X Ron, Harry X Ginny, Gaara X Sakura, Draco X Pansy, more to come

**Demon mindspeaking**  
Host mindspeaking  
" Normal speaking"  
'_Thinking'_  
"..." silence

* * *

By the next week, everyone had settled into the new schedule. Sakura woke up in the Ravenclaw dormitory. She looked at her calendar and her schedule, and notes. September 7: Arithmancy, History, and Defense Against Dark Arts, mostly with Slytherins. Plus, she had an extra study session with the rest of the shinobi (minus Naruto who always forgot events like these) to catch up on spells they should have learned, and, in the middle of the night, she and the other shinobi were meeting in the library for a meeting to discuss current and future plans (probably minus Naruto again). 

Her first class was Arithmancy. Professor Vector, as usual, was proud of the calculations Sakura did on her homework. Shikamaru, however, was reprimanded for sleeping in class. Yet…it was almost unfair whenever Shikamaru finally woke up to take a test and…aced it. Sakura grumbled. Oddly enough, Gaara always had a hundred percent correct too.

"Hi, Hermione," Sakura said to Harry's friend. And then she spotted Gaara starting to leave the class. She, with Hermione, ran to catch up to their red-haired friend.

"Gaara," Sakura said after class. "How come you're always getting higher grades than me?"

"Why don't you ask Shikamaru why he always gets higher than you?"

"I already know why!" Sakura pouted. "That lazy bastard always memorizes everything he reads the first time he skims through it!"

Gaara shrugged. "As Kazekage, I have to be better than others. I study at night, since I have nothing else to do."

"What about sleep?" Hermione asked him.

"I don't sleep," Gaara said.

"What?"

"Hitting on multiple girls now, are you, little brother?" Kankurou grinned, putting his hand on Gaara's head. Normally, had Gaara been a normal person, he would at least playfully hit his brother. But… Shukaku probably would have made that out to be an attack and would have killed him.

"Shut up, Kankurou. I do _not_ acknowledge you as my brother."

"Where did you come from anyway?" Sakura asked him.

"Ah, I've had Divination with Trelawney," Kankurou said. "Ah, I will die of a bit from a rabid rabbit, and return, resurrected as one of the most evil necromancers in history, only to fall under the control of my even more so evil grandmother, who happens to be a zombie, and I will sire an evil son who will bring us the apocalypse. You know, she might as well have told everyone that I also carry the bubonic plague, the old bat…"

"Hi, Shikamaru!" Temari said. Shikamaru looked ready to bolt. She hugged him.

The brothers of the Sand glowered at Shikamaru. He tried to get away… Their glaring was a bit unnerving. So troublesome. He didn't want to die yet.

"Why are you carrying around that enormous fan?" Hermione asked her.

"I just do," Temari said, brushing her off. "Anyway, just had Defense Against Dark Arts with Neji and Tenten. All we do is take notes. He said we should have learned this stuff last year. Here. We just take notes. And I did some reports. Oh, I made copies. And here are Tenten and Neji's notes too."

She passed three scrolls of notes to Sakura. They pocketed each one.

"Isn't that cheating?" Hermione asked.

"Don't be silly," Temari said. "It can't be cheating. It's only notes. Ugh, I've got Care for Magical Creatures now. I swear, one day when Kakashi and Hagrid aren't looking, I am going to wipe the whole lot out… Oh well"

Sakura headed to class. History of Magic. Perfect. Hinata and Ino passed by and handed her five more scrolls. She sighed. More work.

She rolled open one of the scrolls that Temari handed to her. It had been an idea Shikamaru had, regarding their mission. They each gave a small report on the current happenings in school and recorded rumors and possible dangers.

"In the year 13868 BC…" Professor Binns began. Sakura began hurriedly skimming through their notes and copying down the most significant information.

The first one scroll was Tenten's.

**Shinobi Chronicles: Tenten  
**_-Today, September 7, 2005: our after school lessons will be a bit of an introductory lesson for Quidditch and a few Defense Against Dark Creatures lessons._

Irrelevant. She skimmed through and found nothing of any interest.

The next was Neji's scroll.

**Shinobi Chronicles: Neji  
**_-The Triwizard Tournament involves interaction of other schools. Durmstrang and Beauxbatons are coming. The number of foreign students arriving is not sure.  
-The Weasley twins are blackmailing someone.  
-Naruto is a guinea pig for some snacks to be released by next year.  
-Moody's eye is much like the Byakugan and can see through objects and the back of his head.  
-Moody takes a potion very often.  
-Moody is hiding something inside his trunk._

**Shinobi Chronicles: Hinata  
**_-The rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin occasionally causes bouts in private places, such as the bathrooms.  
-Naruto been acting strangely. You may want to see who he has met while he had been gone and training.  
-Professor Moody's eye is like the Byakugan, only it cannot see everything at the same time, so it makes up for that by spinning inside his head.  
-Professor Moody takes some type of medication whenever his hair begins to fall out.  
-Moody has something strange in his trunk and often retrieves what appears to be hair from it.  
-The scroll Naruto had was not important. The envelope he received with Kakashi's package is, I think..._

Sakura smiled. The Hyugas were excellent spies.

Lee's scroll had…nothing significant in it. It had a list of people lacking the 'fire of youth'. Mostly Slytherins.

**Shinobi Chronicles: Kiba  
**_-At dinner, we are not served dog food. Akamaru is tired of cooked People Food and wants something REAL to eat. He wants it. I don't. I don't eat dog food.  
-The Weasley twins have planted cat litter and set it off to fall on the Slytherin table.  
-I do NOT eat dog food. Ignore anything Naruto says about it._

**Shinobi Chronicles: Shino  
**_-The Triwizard Tournament's impartial judge is a cup. Don't ask.  
-The skrewts have learned to blow fire, and I am in need of new winter robes.  
-The skrewts are also growing larger, more dangerous, and more aggressive. I am running out of sunglasses.  
-Gryffindors are in general dislike for Cedric and Slytherins in general.  
-Transferring one of us to Hufflepuff would be useful, but not necessary, as my insects are enough as spies. In fact, several of us on this mission are unnecessary. We should sent some back to Konoha so they may take on other missions that may be vital. I suggest cutting off several of us. Kakashi is especially useless._

Sakura laughed at that. Still, Kakashi could relay some things to other teachers. They needed him so that they could use his status to their advantage.

**Shinobi Chronicles: Sasuke  
**_-Malfoy is irritating me. Somebody stop him. He may disappear.  
-In the girls bathroom where Moaning Myrtle territorially haunts her toilet, there is—_ He didn't finished the comment and scratched out the rest of the sentence.

Was that all he wrote? Sakura sighed at her former love. He was still cute but…he changed. Ino was still in love with him, but Sakura only gooed over him for old times sake. It was almost sad, really. Now what was she supposed to do with her time? Gushing over Sasuke had been her favorite hobby, but now, she had too much free time to think. She shook her head. Keep on reading.

**Shinobi Chronicles: Ino-chan**

_-Professor Snape's hair is unhealthy! There are between 90,000 and 140,000 good reasons, and that's because that's the average number of hair on a man's head. Each hair has its very own oil gland. The production of oil is caused by muggle pollution, strenuous exercise, hormones, sweat, and excess residue from hair products. However, hair color does make some difference. Redheads with thick, coarse hair rarely have problems with oily hair, while blonds with silky, baby-fine hair have the worst problems. Basically…Professor Snape's hair is probably smooth and silky, if it weren't for the greasiness of it. What he needs is to take a daily shower and GOOD SHAMPOO. And when I say good, I mean REALLY good. It's obvious that if he DOES take a showever, he needs really really really really good shampoo. Extra strong. Try clear, see-through shampoos. They've got less goo in them and clean away oil more effectively and don't leave a residue. Or, one teaspoon of apple cider kitchen vinegar added to a pint of water makes an excellent finishing rinse that adds shine and luster to your hair while removing soap residue that can weight down oily hair. A thorough rinsing with plain water will remove the vinegar smell. Or, squeezing the juice of two lemons into a pint of distilled water makes another excellent rinse that helps cut oiliness. If your hair is oily after a difficult, tense day, I suggest using a temporary 'dry' shampoo by sprinkling a tiny amount of talcum powder. Rub the powder first into the scalp, and then the hair with your fingers. It'll absorb some of the white. Of course, we can always give him a little bit too much, because then it'll make his hair turn white and dully and static-y! That'll be interesting…_

Sakura sighed. Leave it up to Ino to pay too much attention to appearances. So much extra information…! Anti-wrinkle cream for Professor McGonagall. Weight-loss treatment for Professor Sprout. Uselessness! This information was all useless!

Sakura sighed. So much of these reports weren't even needed. Gaara, who was sitting next to her at the edge of the 'Slytherin side'. He looked over at her papers and frowned.

He wrote something down on his parchment next to her.

'_Is that all you've been getting for reports?_' he wrote.

'_Some of it is useful,_' she replied.

'_Calling rubbish like this USEFUL cannot be justified. It's trash. Give it_.' Ah, how articulate. The Kazekage says, 'GIVE IT!' The pride of the Sand...

'_I can do it. You don't need to waste your time on these._'

'_Wasting time? I waste my time doing nothing at night but reading the same drivel from these textbooks that these professors give us over and over. I think that time is something I have surplus of. Now give it._' Gaara has the verbal finesse of a butcher and a scholar. Interesting combination.

Sakura had a sudden vision of Gaara Sabaku Kyu-ing her and shuddered. Gaara scowled (even more) than usual at her face and sent her another note.

'_I will not kill you for such trivial matters. With all this spare time I have, I get bored. And Ino's right about Prof. S, although I have a feeling the advice won't help much. It would be easier to shave his head clean bald._'

Sakura giggled at the mental image. Gaara's scowl of a scowl lessened, returning to his usual glare. She didn't even notice the fact that this was a moment to be celebrated, for it was predicted that hell would freeze over before something like this would ever happen. Gaara made a joke.

* * *

Earlier that day, Naruto had been causing mayhem in all his classes. He couldn't wait until Defense Against Dark Arts. Sure, Moody was some kind of freak, but he was an interesting freak. He also hinted at something of a surprise in his class during the first lesson. 

In Charms, he and Kiba were competing for the better Banishing charm, flinging pillows across the room at each other in the face. And then they started banishing each other, until Naruto flew at Flitwick, knocking him down behind the desk.

"Argh, Kiba! I'm gonna Banish you out the window, stupid mutt!"

Vulpes and Akamaru, sitting on the sidelines, laughed at their pets—er, owners.

"You know," Ron said, "they've got waaay too much energy. Look at what Naruto did with the cushion and the door! His aim's a bit off too."

The door had a whole in it where the cushion had made a head-on collision. It was about ten feet off from the baskets lined on the wall that they were _supposed_ to be aiming at.

"Aw, crap!" Naruto swore. His wand had cracked.

"Again?" Kiba asked. "Just how many times has that happened?"

"This is the fifth since school started!" Naruto moaned. "I've got to give it to Kakashi to fix now! Bye, Professor Flitwick!"

The dazed professor staggered from behind the desk.

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Uzimuka…"

"Maybe someone should get him to the infirmary…?" Hermione asked tentatively.

* * *

Naruto was running when he found Kakashi reading _Icha Icha Paradise_ in the middle of teaching some third-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuff classes while stepping his foot on a skrewt, pinning it's stinger onto its back at the same time. 

"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto said. "It broke _again_ in the middle of Charms!"

"Shouldn't you have a pass to get out of class or something…?"

"Professor Flitwick didn't give me one so I guess not. Anyway, can you fix it?"

"Sure, give it." Kakashi took Naruto's wand and used the Henge no Jutsu. All fixed. "There you go." They seem to forget that genjutsus are illusions and the wand has never been fixed in the first place the last 5 times...

The bell rang. Classes were over and Naruto would have to run back to the classroom to gather his belongings and then to his next class. "Kuso! Uh, thanks, Kakashi-sensei! Seeya!" Naruto shouted, running back to class.

"Uh-huh..." Kakashi returned to his book and to stepping on the skrewt.

Naruto's third class of the day was Defense Against Dark Arts with Professor Moody.

"Hey, Kiba!" Naruto said. Kiba grumbled, his body aching from the constant Banishings. Naruto was hardly affected at all!

He held up a familiar mischievous fox.

"I believe you left this thing behind," he muttered, tossing Vulpes at him. Vulpes landed in Naruto's arms and bit his hand. "Ow! Stupid fox!" He waved his hand in front of him maniacally. "Get off!"

"Problems with your pet, Mr. Uzumaki?" Moody asked.

"It's not a pet, it's a furry little disaster!" Naruto growled. "C'mere, Vulpes! I'm going to shave you!" The fox seemed to stick its tongue out at Naruto, as if to say '_My name is not Vulpes._'

Ron snickered loudly. He, Harry, and Hermione were sitting in the front of the classroom. Naruto, Kiba, Hinata, Chouji, and Ino sat next to them, trying to get good seats. Gaara, Shino, and Sasuke sat behind them in mutual silence. And behind them were the freaky fangirls. They all took out their books when Professor Moody stopped them.

"You can put them away," he growled, stumping over to his desk and sitting down, "those books. You won't be needing those."

They returned their books to their backs. Ron looked excited.

Moody took attendence, taking a good long look at each and every single student when he did so. It took a while.

"Right then," he said. Naruto sighed. FINALLY. "I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. Ot seems you've had a pretty thorough grounding in tackling Dark creatures—you've covered boggarts, Red Caps, hinkypunks, grindylows, kappas, and werewolves, is that right?"

There was a general murmer of assent, although Naruto had no idea what the professor was talking about. At least the other shinobi, however, skimmed through the other textbooks. A kinky punk and a red hat? Weird…

"But you're behind—very behind—on dealing with curses." Naruto looked at Sasuke.

"So I'm here to bring you up to scratch on what wizards can do to each other. I've got one year to teach you how to deal with Dark—"

"You aren't staying?" Kiba asked.

Professor Moody's magical eye spun around to stare at Kiba, who looked extremely apprehensive and uncomfortable, being the object of attention of that creepy blue eye. It's worse than the Byakugan! At least the Byakugan wasn't so flashy and stood out so much. Moody smiled, as twisted and distorted as ever, making his face look even more disturbing, but it was nice to know the man could smile.

"Yes, Mr... uh...Inuzuka. Only one year," Moody said. "It's a special favor to Dumbledore. Then I'm back to my quiet retirement. There's a rumor that the job's jinxed. If I stay any longer, I might die." He gave a harsh laugh and then clapped his gnarled hands together.

"So—straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you countercurses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you was illegal Dark curses look like until you're in the sixth year. You're not supposed to be old enough to deal with it till then. But Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves. He reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you're up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen? A wizard who's about to put an illegal curse on you isn't going to tell you what he's about to do. He's not going to do it nice and polite to your face. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to put that away, Miss Brown, when I'm talking."

Lavender jumped and blushed. She had been showing Parvati her completed horoscope under her desk. Apparently, Moody's magical eye, as Gaara had read from Neji and Hinata's reports, could see through things.

"So…do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"

Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Ron's and Hermione's. Gaara also knew them, having read something about them several times.

"Eh, my dad told me about one. Is it called the Imperious Curse, or something?"

"Ah, yes," Moody said appreciatively. "Your father _would_ know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperious Curse."

Moody heavily, got to his mismatched feet, opened his desk drawer, and took out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it. Harry felt Ron recoil slightly next to him. Ron hated spiders. Sasuke watched with interest in his red-tainted eyes.

And behind Ron, Shino was glaring at the spiders through his dark lenses. Was he growling? Nah, it must have been the insects buzzing under his skin, a bit louder than usual, sensing the enemy to all insects: Spiders. Damn spiders! Eating his insects! Shino hated spiders.

A Slytherin, seated next to Shino, heard this strange buzzing sound and sensed his 'angry aura' and inched away from his bespectacled classmate in his seat.

Moody reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders, and held it in the palm of his hand so that they could all see it. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered, "_Imperio!_"

The spider leapt from Professor Moody's hand and began to swing back and forth as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its leg rigidly, then did a backflip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.

Everyone was laughing—everyone except Moody.

"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"

The laughter died away almost instantly. Geez, what a party pooper.

"Total control," Moody said quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over. "I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats…"

Ron gave an involuntary shudder.

"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," said Moody. Harry knew he was talking about the days in which Voldemort had been all-powerful. "Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will.

"The Imperious Curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he barked, and everyone jumped. Naruto even fell out of his chair, knocking Vulpes off of the desk along with him. The only ones who didn't react were the three Slytherins. Of course, you could never tell when Shino was doing anything, and nothing ever surprised Sasuke and Gaara.

Moody picked up the somersaulting spider and tossed it back into the jar.

"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"

Hermione's hand flew into the air again and so, to Harry's slight surprise, did Neville's. The only class in which Neville usually volunteered information was Herbology, which was easily his best subject. Neville looked surprised (more like horrified) at his own daring.

"Yes?" Moody said, his magical eye rolling right over from Lavender to fix a stare on Neville who shrank even more.

"There's one—the Cruciatus Curse," he whimpered in a small but distinct voice.

Moody was watching Neville very intently. With both eyes.

"Your name is Longbottom?" he asked, his magical eye swooping down to check the register again

Neville nodded nervously, but Moody made no further inquiries. Turning back to the class at large, he reached into the jar for the next spider and placed it upon the desktop, where it remained motionless, apparently too scared to more.

"The Cruciatus Curse," said Moody. "Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea." He pointed his wand at the spider. _Engorgio_!"

The spider swelled. It was not the size of a small dog. Abandoning all pretense, Ron pushed his chair backward, as far away from Moody's desk as possible, bumping into the front of Shino's table, where he angrily buzzed. Ron stared up at Shino behind him with a puzzled face. And then he went back to gawk at the giant spider in fear.

Moody pointed at the spider. "_Crucio!_"

At once, the spider's legs bent in upon its body. It rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound came from it, but it probably would have been screaming, had it had a voice like a human.

Kiba covered Akamaru's eyes and Hinata tried to look at something else, although that was a useless effort. Naruto looked at Vulpes, suddenly intrigued by the very red fur. Sasuke watched, suddenly full of interest, unlike usual. Ino had to look away. So she ended up turning around and staring at Sasuke, who had been watching Moody the whole time with a hint of crimson in his eyes. Vulpes groomed his fur indifferently. Chouji was busy paying a lot of attention to his bag of chips. Low calories! No! He'd have to switch to BBQ Lay's now! And, to everyone's surprise and fear, Shino was laughing. It was hard to hear, but it was there. Just as Ron had scooted away from the spider, the class slowly shuffled away from Shino.

Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently.

"Ano...Neville...a-are you o-okay...?" Hinata asked.

"Stop it!" Hermione said in a shrill voice. Harry looked around at her. She was looking, not at the spider, but at Neville, and Harry, following her gaze, saw that Neville's hands were clenched upon the desk in front of him, his knuckles white. His eyes grew wide and horrified.

Moody raised his wand. The spider's legs relaxed, but it continued to twitch.

"_Reducio,_" Moody muttered, and the spider shrank back to its normal size. Shino sighed sadly. He put it back in the jar.

"Pain," he said softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse… That one was very popular once too."

Naruto frowned. This guy was exactly like Ibiki…

"Sooo…anyone know any others?"

Gaara rose his hands, much to his own surprise. What the hell was his hand doing?

"Yes, Mr… Sabaku?"

Mister Sabaku? That sounded stupid! He was too used to 'Kazekage-sama' during conversations with formal idiots and 'Gaara' and 'Gaara-san' with everyone who thought they were close to him and 'Sabaku-san' and 'Sabaku-sama' for everyone in between.

"It's Kazekage…" Gaara said, while most of the students and Moody wondered 'Why have a nickname if it's longer and harder to pronounce?' Nevertheless, the look he gave them all told them not to question him. "There is the Killing Curse, Avada Kedavra," he said. Hermione sulked. She hadn't gotten the chance to say anything…

"Ah," Moody said, another slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth. "Yes, the last and the worst. _Avada Kedavra…_ the killing curse." Gaara frowned. He just said that.

Moody put his hand into the glass jar, and almost as though it knew what was coming, the third spider scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, trying to evade Moody's fingers, but he trapped it, and placed it upon the desktop. It started to scuttle frantically across the wooden surface.

Moody raised his want, and everyone felt a sudden thrill of foreboding.

"_Avada Kedavra!_"

There was a flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound, as though a vast, invisibly soemthing was soaring through the air. Everyone in the class flinched from the brightness (except for Shino, since he had his sunglasses). Instantaneously, the spider rolled over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakably dead, with it's legs curled up. Several students stifled cries. Ron threw himself backward and almost toppled off his seat as the spder skidded toward him. He would have falling over if it hadn't been for the fact that he had already been pressed against the front of Shino's desk.

Moody swept the dead spider off the desk and onto the floor.

"It's not nice," he said calmly, as if barely anything had happened. "Not pleasant. And there's no countercurse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it's effects of instant death, and he's sitting right in front of me."

Harry's faced went read as both of Moody's eyes held his own gaze. Everyone was staring at him. Sasuke's eye returned to their normal fathomless black hue and turned around to look at Harry as well. Now Naruto understood why he was so famous here. The only person in history who had survived a killing curse. Cool. Harry stared at the blank blackboard as though fascinated by it, but not really seeing it all.

So…that was how his parents had died. Just like that spider. So they had been unblemished and unmarked too? Had they simply seen the flash of green light and heard the rush of speeding death before life was wiped from their bodies?

He had been picturing their deaths over and over again for three years now, ever since he had found out they had been murdered. Ever since he had found out what had happened that night: Wormtail had betrayed his parent's whereabouts to Voldemort, who had come to find them at their cottage. How Voldemort had killed Harry's father first. How James Potter had tried to hold him off, while he shouted at his wife to take Harry and run. Voldemort hat advanced on Lily Potter, told her to move aside so that he could kill Harry. How she had begged him to kill her instead, refusing to stop shielding her son. How Voldemort had obliged and murdered her too, before turning his wand on Harry.

He knew these details because he had heard their voices when he had fought dementors last year—for that was the terrible power of dementors: to force their victims to relive the worst memories of their lives, and drown, powerless, in their own despair.

Moody was speaking again, from a great distance, it seemed to Harry. He pulled himself back to the present and listened to what Moody was saying. He looked around that the class.

Naruto looked like he was deep in thought, contrary to his usual idiot self. Sasuke, behind him, looked captivated by this curse…

"_Avada Kedavra'_s a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it—you could get all your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed." Sasuke looked disappointed.

"Now, if there's no countercurse, why am I showing you? _Because you've got to know_. You've got to appreciate what the worst is. You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you're facing it. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" The whole class jumped again. This time, Naruto was not the only person to fall out of his seat. And once again, the Slytherin shinobi were completely devoid of any reaction.

"Now…those three curses—Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus—are known as Unforgivable Curses. The use of any one of them on a fellow human being is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban. That's what you're up against. That's what I've got to teach you to fight. You need preparing. You need arming. But most of all, you need to practice _constant, never-ceasing vigilance._ Get out your quills and copy this down. Now, those are the three Unforgivable Curses. There are several other curses that are looked down upon, such as the Dismemberment Curse, the Sealing Curse, the Evil Releasing Curse…" He went on for a while.

They spent the rest of the lesson taking notes on each of the Unforgivable Curses. No one spoke until the bell rang—but when Moody dismissed them and they had left the classroom, a torrent to talk burst forth. Most people were discussing the curses in awed voices. On the way out, Shino made sure to stomp on the dead spider on the ground.

"Did you see it twitch!" Naruto shouted.

"And then it just died..." Kiba said, in daze.

"Hey," Ino said suddenly. "Doesn't Moody remind you of another certain nutcase back at home? You know...that guy... Hint-hint. A certain crazy guy with interrogation scars and corkscrew scars all over his head...?"

"Ibiki and Moody must be twins," Chouji muttered. "Or clones."

"Hn...this class is pretty useful after all..." Sasuke murmured. "I don't need to."

"Don't you go getting any ideas, Sasuke-bastard," Naruto warned. "Not after all the trouble we went through getting the shit beat out of us the first time we tried getting you back, failing, and then all that crap that EVERYONE went through to get you back for good."

Sasuke shrugged. "I'm not running away, Naruto."

What was that about? Harry wondered.

"Hurry up," Hermione said tensely to Harry and Ron.

She dragged them over to Neville, who was standing alone, halfway up the passage, staring at the stone wall opposite of him with the same horrified, wide-eyed look he had worn when Moody had demonstrated the Cruciatus Curse.

"Neville?" Hermione said gently. He looked around with an odd, confused sort of look on his face.

"Oh hello," he said, his voice much higher than usual. "Interesting lesson, wasn't it? I wonder what's for dinner? I'm—I'm starving, aren't you?"

"Neville, are you alright?" Hermione asked.

"Oh yes, I'm fine," he gabbled in the same unnaturally high voice. "Very interesting dinner—I mean lesson—what's for eating?"

Ron gave Harry a startled look.

"Neville, what—?"

But an odd clunking noise sounded behind them, and they turned to see Professor Moody limping toward them. All four of them fell silent, watching him apprehensively, but when he spoke, it was in a much lower and gentler growl than they had yet heard.

"It's alright, sonny," he said to Neville. "Why don't you come up to my office? Come one…we can have a cup of tea…"

Neville looked even more frightened at the prospect of tea with Moody. He neither moved nor spoke. Moody turned his magical eye upon Harry. "You all right, are you, Potter?"

"Yes," said Harry, almost defiantly.

"You know, it seems harsh, maybe, but _you've got to know._ No point in pretending…well…come on, Longbottom, I've got some books that might interest you."

Neville looked pleadingly at Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but they didn't say anything, so Neville had not choice but to allow himself to be dragged away, one of Moody's gnarled hands on his shoulder.

"What was that about?" Ron wondered, watching Neville and Moody turnd the corner.

"Some lesson, eh? Fred and George were right, weren't they. He really knows his stuff, Moody, doesn't he? When he did the Avada Kedavra, the way the spider just died, just snuffed it right—"

But Ron fell suddenly silent at the look on Harry's face and didn't speak again until they reached the Great Hall, when he said he supposed they had better start on Professor Trelawney's predictions tonight, since they could take hours.

Hermione did not join in with Harry and Ron's conversation during dinner, but ate furiously fast, and then left for the library again. Harry and Ron walked back to Gryffindor Tower, and Harry, who had been thinking of nothing else all through dinner, now raised the subject of the Unforgivable Curses himself.

"Wouldn't Moody and Dumbledore be in trouble with the Ministry if they knew we had seen the curses?" Harry asked as they approached the Fat Lady.

"Yeah, probably," Ron said. "But Dumbledore's always marched to his own beat, and Moody's been getting himself into trouble for years, I reckon. Attacks first, ask questions later. Remember the incident my dad said about the dustbins? Balderdash."

The Fat Lady swung forward to reveal the entrance hole, and they climbed into the Gryffindor common room, which was crowded and noisy.

They went up to the dormitory to get their books and charts to find Neville up there alone, sitting on his bed, reading. He looked much calmer than at the end of Moody's lesson, though his eyes were a bit red.

"You alright?" Harry asked him.

"I'm fine, thanks," said Neville. "Just reading this book Professor Moody lent me…"

He held up the book: _Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean_.

"Apparently, Professor Sprout told Professor Moody I'm really good at Herbology," Neville said. There was a faint note of pride in his voice that Hary had rarely heard there before. "He thought I'd like this."

Harry grinned at his friend. He and Ron took their copies and found a quiet table in the common room, working on their predictions for the next month. An hour later, they had made very little progress.

Naruto joined them.

"Hey, working on the Quack's homework?" he asked them. They nodded. "Good. I haven't got a clue what this junk is supposed to mean," he said, staring at his long list of calculations and doodling. "Apparently, I've got three moons and a planet Zenon on my sky map. What the hell is Zenon…?" Harry snorted.

"Join the club, mate," Ron said. Naruto sat down.

"Man, Hinata's already finished and won't let me copy," Naruto said. "She says I shouldn't do that because I won't learn anything if I do. What do we learn here anyway! Staring at the sky is Shikamaru's thing, not mine, darn it!"

"You know..." Harry said. "There might be a reason she didn't let you copy. For example, you'd have the exact same fortune."

"Eh...I hate this junk," Naruto sighed, banging his head on the table. "Yay! A star! I'm going to have ten kids, two wives, and crazy load of in-laws! What joy! And then I'll die at fifty, have my body dumped in a river, and everyone will sing 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!'"

Harry snickered at the thought.

"You know," Ron said. "I think it's tome to go back to the old divination standby."

"Eh?"

"Making it up?" Harry asked.

"Yup. He swept the jumble of scrawled notes off the table, dipping his pen into some ink, and started to write. "I am likely to develop a cough, owing the unlucky conjunction of Mars and Jupiter. You know her, Harry. Just put in loads of misery. She'll lap it up."

"Okay, on Monday, I will be in danger of...burns. Yeah."

"Yeah, we will be," Naruto said darkly. "We've got Care for Magical Creatures on Monday. I heard from Shino that the skrewts are learning to make fire."

"Fire!"

"The dude with the sunglasses? You _heard_ him?"

"Yup. They've got fire. Lucky us, huh? No more sparks. And Shino does talk from time to time if you listen really closely. He usually just... buzzes though."

Ron flipped through the book. "On Tuesday, I will…uh…"

"Not be chosen for a special event in class," Harry suggested.

"Good one," Ron said. "Because...Mercury?"

"Hey, Harry, why don't you get ditched by a friend?"

"Yeah, because Venus is in...the twelfth house.

"On Wednesday, I lose a fight," Naruto said.

"Aah, I was going to do that," Ron said. "Okay, I'll lose a bet."

"Yeah, cuz you'll be betting that I won!"

"Harry, you could be subject to Ron's brothers' pranks."

"Cool."

Kiba and Chouji soon joined them, and they continued to make more predictions, which grew steadily more and more tragic. The common room began to empty as people went up to bed. Crookshanks wandered over to them, leaping lightly into an empty chair with Akamaru and Vulpes, staring inscrutably at Harry, rather as Hermione might look if she knew they weren't doing their homework properly.

Looking around the room, trying to think of a kind of misfortune he hadn't yet used, Harry spotted Fred and George sitting together against the opposite side of the room, heads together, quills out, poring over a single piece of parchment.

"No—that sounds like we're accusing him. Gotta be careful…"

Harry looked away as George (it was probably George) saw Harry watching them. After several moments, George and Fred went up to the dormitories and went to off to bed.

Moments later, Hermione largely charged into the room, startling Ino out of her seat when she announced, "I FINISHED!"

"And so have I!" Ron cried triumphantly, throwing down his quill. She inspected his predictions. And then Harry's. And Naruto's. And Kiba's. And Chouji's.

"You're all having a pretty bad week, aren't you?" Hermione said apprehensively. "Ron, you've drowned twice already."

"Oh? Okay then. I'll be trampled by a rampaging hippogriff."

"Yeah, and Naruto, you can't fall down the stairs at Care for Magical Creatures. It's outside. There_ are _no stairs."

Naruto fixed it. He drank Neville's potion and went into a coma.

Hermione sighed. "Isn't it a bit obvious that you guys made this all up?"

"How dare you say so!" Ron said in mock outrage. "We've been working like house elves here!"

Hermione raised a brow.

"Just an expression…"

Harry finished off with his death by decapitation, setting down his quill. "What's with box?" he asked her.

"Funny thing you should ask," she said. She removed the lid and reveled the contents.

Inside were about fifty badges, all of different colors, but still bearing the same letters: S.P.E.W.

"'Spew'?" Harry picked up a badge, looking at it. "What's this about?"

"Not _spew_," Hemione said impatiently. "It's S-P-E-W. It stands for the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare."

"Never heard of it," Ron said.

'Of course you haven't," Hermione said. "I've only just started it."

"Really?" Kiba asked. "How many members do you have?"

"Well, if you two join, three."

"And you think we want to walk around wearing badges saying spew?"

"S-P-E-W! I was going to put Stop the Outrageous Abuse of Our Fellow Magical Creatures and Campaign for a Change in Their Legal Status, but it wouldn't fit. So that's the heading of our manifesto."

"How about Society to Help Individuals Treat elves right?" Naruto suggested. "It could come out to be S-H-I-T-E-R. The I is short." Shitter?

"Hey, that's a good ide—idiot!" Hermione threw a badge at Naruto. She brandished a sheaf of parchment at them.

"I've been researching it thoroughly in the library. Elf enslavement goes back centuries. I can't believe no one's done anything about it before now."

"Hermione, open your ears!" Ron said. "They. Like. It. They _like_ being 'enslaved'!"

"Yeah," Kiba said. "If we freed them, they'd start some rebellion force us to take them all back again."

"Our short-term arms are to secure house elves fair wages and working conditions. Our long-term aims include changing the law about non-wand use, and trying to get an elf into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, because they're shockingly underrepresented."

"And how do we do this?" Harry asked.

"We start by recruiting members. I thought two Sickles to join. You're treasurer, Ron. Harry, you can be secretary, so start writing down everything I say. Are you guys going to join?"

"I got no cash on me," Naruto muttered.

"Oh well, you're not going to be anything major than. Just a normal member."

"Cool."

Hermione paused to grin at them all. Harry sighed, and Ron looked amused. The silence was broken by a soft tapping on the window. Hedwig had arrived.

"About time!" Harry said excitedly.

"An answer?" Ron asked.

"What answer?"

Another bird flew inside from the window. Hinata recognized it to be Takamaru, the fastest bird from the Sand. After sending a message all the way from the Sand to Konoha, it was supposed to be on a break until it was prepared to take flight once again. Only it was supposed to be going back to the Sand. Why on earth was Konoha using the Sand birds? Well, as allies, the birds were shared, after all.

"For us?" Hinata wondered. The shinobi looked around, confused. Two messages for each groups at once.

About that time, when Harry was closing the window, a black dart flew at Naruto and climbed into his shirt.

"AAAH!"

"Stop drop and roll, Naruto," Kiba shouted. "Stop. Drop. And roll!"

"Idiot, he's not on fire! He'll smush whatever's in there!" Ino said.

"That's the point!"

Naruto froze.

"Uh...it's gone," he said, patting himself down.

Everyone looked around the room. Naruto got up from the floor. "I think I need to go to the bathroom... I feel so violated."

Naruto went up to the dorms. Lee was asleep already; Kiba and Chouji were still out there. A tiny bat was perched upside down on his finger as he rolled open the scroll with the other hand. Naruto read the letter that Kurogane had sent him. Unlike most of his other letters, Kurogane must have not written five drafts for it. It lacked his usual finesse.

_Kyuubi and Naruto,_

_The Akatsuki know where you and Gaara are, and the Sound are crying for Sasuke's return for betraying their side. Lord Orochimaru means to take him back. The damage you placed on his body is great. All sides are gathering. They do not, however, believe you are stupid enough to attend the chuunin exams with such dangerous figures running about loose in the world crying for your demon. Despite this information, I have a feeling you will attend anyway. I know you better than them. Therefore, I am heading your way at this very moment. Madoka and I are coming to help you train. Yes, we are aware of the spells that prevent the entrance of outsiders, but we have found a weak spot in this magical defense. The answer lies in the Forbidden Forest. Centaurs, among other creatures, leave the forests in the winter. Should the spells remain strong in the forest, they would be stuck outside of the forest upon their return. I have actually managed to reserve a room at an inn in a nearby village called Hogsmeade. When I arrive, which should be soon, I will send for you and call you for another meeting. Take care of Kouha. _

_Also, news of your fox intrigues me. When I send for you, bring him with you. It may be more than just a fox, but Madoka says I am being paranoid again. And rumors of Nekomata and Isonade are flying. They and their hosts may have survived. Either that or one of the vessel's caretaker has. The chances, however, are slim to none. I still believe them to be quite dead._

_The Sand is aware of the sudden movement of the Sound and Akatsuki. They are rushing the Chuunin exam preparations. I believe you have one less day to complete this tournament; in other words, it starts on October first and ends on the ninth. I will probably arrive the day after you read this, so prepare for my coming. _

Kurogane must have been in a hurry when he wrote this! He didn't even insult Naruto or sign his name in fancy letters. Naruto scratched his head.

Kurogane was coming. To _Hogwarts._ Naruto appreciated the gesture, but this was getting way to serious! And complicated. It was nice that Kurogane actually cared enough to go so far to the West just to help him out (not that he'd ever admit to being a nice guy), but what of his loyalty to the Sound? When the time came to obeying orders from the Sound or helping a friend out, Naruto was sure that Kurogane would not hesitate to return to his own people. Which meant if the Sound wanted Sasuke, it would be up to Naruto to keep them away from each other. But…back to the present. Thinking about the future hurt Naruto's brain.

He was supposed to prepare for Kurogane's arrival…? Like, do what? Shower him with presents and food? Whatever man, Kurogane's crazy.

"Come on, guys," Naruto said to Kou and Vulpes. "_Henge no jutsu!_" Naruto became a bat the size of Kouha.

"You're ridiculous," Kouha said to Naruto. He wished that summon animals didn't talk… Kouha still wanted a meal. He and Kouha buried themselves in the fox's fur under his belly.

Vulpes, looking quite uncomfortable two stowaways in his fur, seemed to sigh. Running out of the Gryffindor common room, Akamaru barked to wonder where Vulpes was going. Everyone else turned around to watch. Hidden in the fur, Naruto noticed that Harry, Ron, and Hermione were in one corner of the room with Harry's bird's letter. The others were on the other side of the room, probably discussing something important without Naruto.

In response to Akamaru's question and everyone's staring, Vulpes seemed to stare at them with skeptical eyes, as if saying, 'It's private but if you wanna know…'

Vulpes lifted his leg.

"No!" Kiba said. "Bad fox! Not inside the common room. Just head for the dungeons."

Vulpes snickered and ran out of the room inconspicuously. The moment they hit freedom, Naruto and Kouha detached from their fox cab and all three sped out of the building, running over Ms. Norris and running/flapping for dear life. It took a while with Naruto's below average navigation skills, but they finally exited the castle towards the Forbidden Forest.

* * *

Harry was freaking out. Sirius was coming to Hogwarts! He looked at the other students in the common room, who were reading their own letter, except for Naruto who had just left, and looking like they were freaking out themselves. Ah, the irony. 

_Harry—_

_I'm flying north immediately. This news about your scar is the latest in a series of strange rumors that have reached me here. If it hurts again, go straight to Dumbledore—they're saying he's got Mad-Eye out of retirement, which means he's reading the signs, even if no one else is. _

_I'll be in touch soon. My best to Ron and Hermione. Keep your eyes open, Harry. _

—_Sirius_

"He's flying north?" Hermione whispered. "He's coming _back_?"

"Dumbledore's reading what signs?" said Ron, looking confused. "Harry, what's up with all of this?"

Harry just hit his forehead with his fist. "I shouldn't have told him!" Harry said furiously. The shinobi across the room looked up at him at his sudden outburst, but returned to their own business, panicking at their own message.

"What are you on about?" Ron whispered."

"It's made him think he's got to come back," Harry said. "He's coming back, because he thinks I'm in trouble. And there's nothing wrong with me! I—I'm going to bed… See you in the morning."

As if on cue, everybody stood up and began to head to bed when, all of a sudden, Kiba came running out. "Hey, guys, Naruto's gone!"

* * *

_This is a message to everyone:_

_The Akatsuki know and the Sound are gathering. Not together, of course, but they are both preparing for something big. Orochimaru is probably still after the Sharingan eye—he wants it more than ever now. His body has been damaged. Either he will move to a new body and things will quiet down for a bit or he will move quickly and attempt to gain a perfectly able body. _

_The chuunin exams, however, are approaching. They will take place from October 1st to October 9th. Sasuke needs not to attend. As we have recently realized, Sasuke, while in the Sound, had already been promoted to chuunin level almost the moment he arrived. Sasuke, it would have been a much less hassle should you have told us in the first place. With Akatsuki and the Sound loose, Naruto and Gaara should both return to the Sand through the 'Portkey' that Kakashi had sent us. Temari and Shikamaru, as voluntary judges who supervise the chuunin exams, may come. It is a choice, not a command. _

_A letter similar to this has also been sent to Kakashi and the Headmaster of this school. We may arrive soon, on the day Naruto leaves, both through this 'Portkey'. Naruto and Gaara: don't do anything stupid. _

_As for everyone else, keep them out of trouble. PLEASE. _

—_Kurenai-sensei_

_(and Gai, Shizune, Iruka, Asuma, Tsunade, and Jiraiya too)_

"Kurenai-sensei's…coming. Here." Kiba looked horrified. "This can't be happening! This is horrible! She'll make us do work! And more work! And once we're through with that, she'll probably force of to do even _moretraining_!"

"We should also tell Naruto about the dates of the chuunin exam," Chouji said. They all stood up. Kiba went straight to bed when he ran out, looking distraught.

"Hey, guys!" he cried. "Naruto's gone!"

"Where?" Ino asked.

"I don't know. He just isn't in his room!"

"Kiba…" Ino said. "He _said_ he went to the bathroom."

"But Akamaru's using it!"

"Akamaru uses the toilet?" Harry asked.

"Yeah," Kiba said. "You don't think I brought in a dog that wasn't housetrained, do you? I'm better than that, and Akamaru isn't the type of dog to just go on the ground in public. He's shy. So you've only had animals go anywhere they please? Honestly, there's just no discipline these days."

Harry and Ron stared at Kiba skeptically, although Hermione looked pleased by Akamaru's 'civility'. Nevertheless, Naruto was still gone.

"Hinata could find him," Chouji said.

"Right!" Ino said. She ran into the dormitories and woke Hinata up.

"_Nani_...?" Hinata muttered. She put on her hitai-ate band. "What's wrong, Ino-san?"

"Naruto's gone off somewhere," Ino said. "Can you see him?"

Hinata searched the castle and didn't find him anywhere. "Um...m-my sight does not reach as far as Neji's. I'm sorry. You might want to try with him."

"And how do you suppose we do that?" Ino asked her.

Hinata rummaged through her bag next to the bed and found a piece of parchment. "Gaara, Sakura, and Shikamaru have given one of us from each house a piece of parchment to send messages to one another. This is just an experiment to them and they are working on a notebook for I have not studied so far into the other classes that sixth years take, but whatever I write on the back side of the parchment will appear on the front of theirs. It's like…instant messaging, that muggle use of an 'internet'. They also say that they had gotten the idea from a group of wizards long ago, but they didn't say anything further."

Hermione passed by the room.

Hinata flipped the parchment over onto the back and wrote: "_Neji-kun, Naruto has gone off somewhere, and I can't see as far as you. If it is no trouble, can you tell us where he is?_"

Neji's response immediately came. "_Naruto is outside of the castle in front of the Forbidden Forest speaking with Kakashi. He's fine, Hinata-san._"

"He's fast," Ino said. "I'll just tell the others that." Ino left.

* * *

Meanwhile, Neji and Shikamaru were playing shogi. Tenten was sitting next to Neji, watching them play and reading some class notes. She stood up and pulled out a warm parchment from her pocket. "Hey, Hinata's sending a message. Awesome, I was wondering if this thing worked or not," Tenten said. She unfolded it and read the message with a frown. "Hm... Naruto's gone... Neji, can you see him?" 

Neji sighed, focusing his Byakugan eye around the castle until he realized that Naruto was not wearing his uniform or his sleeping clothes, but rather his bright orange jumpsuit. Of course, that was almost all that Neji saw. It was rather dark outside. He was talking to a man with light, silvery hair. Kakashi. They were talking about something. Not that he could hear anyway, but it seemed like they were in the middle of a serious discussion.

Kakashi sighed and Naruto grinned, jumping up and down excitedly, waving a piece of parchment in the air. So Kakashi was either treating him to ramen or talking about his rank. Neji had received a bird, Takahashi, that flew into the room and sent them a message from their teachers. The chuunin exams were coming up. So it all came together: Naruto was probably just asking to get time off his classes to train or something.

But still, couldn't he have just told someone?

* * *

"Naruto, why are you dragging me out in the middle of the night just to ask about training?" Kakashi groggily asked him. 

"This is really important, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto begged, holding out a normal pen (much more convenient than quills) to him. "Please just sign this?"

"Fine," Kakashi muttered. "What is this?"

"Permission to train in the forest," Naruto said. "In all my free time."

"Couldn't this wait until tomorrow?"

"No, 'cuz I wanna start tonight!"

"It's two in the morning, Naruto."

"Well can't I start? All I need is for you to sign this, and then I'll have permission to go into the forest past curfew!"

"Why do you want to go into the forest past curfew…?" Was Naruto meeting a girl behind his back?

"I told you already. So I can train!" Oh, of course not…Naruto never got the talk before. Wait, never? Never ever? Never ever ever! Uh oh.

Kakashi sighed and signed the paper. "There you go. Don't get yourself killed." He waved him off. Naruto jumped up and down excitedly, waving the parchment back and forth. After several minutes, Kakashi fell asleep on his feet and Naruto ran into the forest.

* * *

**My Thinking Corner:**

Alright, alright, I'm sure that you're all going to start screaming at me about how stupid and useless this chapter is so let me make it clear: this chapter is only here as a support chapter—generally useless save for several clues to future occurrences. Yes, including Moody's class. Look closely, and you might find something of interest. Of course, you might also pick up several other clues that'll just...do nothing except make you paranoid. Whatever.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: It TALKS!

Pairings: Naruto X Hinata, Shikamaru X Temari, Neji X Tenten, Kakashi X Kurenai, Hermione X Ron, Harry X Ginny, Gaara X Sakura, Draco X Pansy, more to come

**Demon mindspeaking  
**Host mindspeaking  
" Normal speaking"  
'Thinking'  
"…" silence

* * *

_Dear Sirius,_

_I reckon I just imagined my scar hurting, I was half asleep when I wrote to you last time. There's not point in coming back, everything's fine here. Don't worry about me. My head feels completely normal. _

—_Harry_

"That was a _lie,_ Harry," Hermione said sharply over breakfast. "You _didn't_ imagine your scar hurting and you know it."

"So what?" Harry said. "He's not going back to Azkaban because of me."

"Drop it," Ron said to Hermione as she opened her mouth to argue some more. She fell silent.

Harry did his best not to worry about Sirius over the next couple days. He was thankful for Naruto's constant antics in class. Mulling over the disastrous results of having Naruto, Fred, and George within a miles radius of each other helped Harry keep his mind off of his godfather's possible rash actions.

Their lessons were also getting more difficult and demanding than ever before, particularly Moody's Defense Against Dark Arts. To their surprise, Professor Moody had announced that he would be putting the Imperius Curse on each of them in turn, to demonstrate its power and to see whether they could resist its effects.

"But—but you said it's illegal, Professor Moody," Hinata said hesitantly as Moody cleared away the desks with a sweep of his wand, leaving a large clear space in the middle of the room. "You said—to use it against another human was—"

"Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like," he replied, his magical eye swiveling onto Hinata and fixing her with an eerie, unblinking stare. She squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. Scary... "If you'd rather learn the hard way, when someone's putting it on you so they can control you completely, fine by me. You're excused. Off you go." Hinata didn't move. She probably would have left...if she wasn't frozen stiff by all the attention from everyone in the room and BOTH of Moody's eyes. "Fine. Anyone _else _want to leave?"

"Cool," Naruto said. "Free training time." He began to leave the classroom, but found Gaara blocking the exit.

"Naruto, sit," he commanded. Naruto did so, sulkily. His fox sneered at him.

Moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the Imperius Curse upon them. Harry watched as, one by one, his classmates did the most extraordinary things under his influence. Dean Thomas hopped three times around the room, singing the national anthem. Lavender Brown imitated a squirrel. Neville performed a series of quite astonishing gymnastics he would certainly not have been capable of doing in his normal state. Not one of them seemed to be able to fight off the curse.

"Potter," Moody growled. "You next."

Harry moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that Moody had cleared of desks. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at Harry, and said, "_Imperio!_"

It was the most wonderful feeling. Harry felt a floating sensation as every though and worry in his head was wiped gently away, leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness. He stood there feeling immensely relaxed, only dimly aware of everyone watching him.

And then he head Mad-Eye Moody's voice, echoing in some distant chamber of his emptied brain.

_Jump onto the desk…jump onto the desk…_

Harry bent his knees obediently, preparing to spring.

_Jump onto the desk…_

'Why though?' Another voice had awoken in the back of his brain. 'A stupid thing to do, really,' said the voice.

_Jump onto the desk…_

'No, I don't think I will, thanks,' said the other voice, a little more firmly. '…No, I don't really want to…'

_Jump! NOW!_

The next thing Harry felt was considerable pain. He had both jumped and tried to prevent himself from jumping, resulting in smashing headlong into the desk, knocking it over, and, by the feeling in his legs, fractured both of his kneecaps.

"Now _that's _more like it!" Moody's voice growled. Suddenly, Harry felt the empty, echoing feeling in his head disappear. He remembered exactly what was happening, and the pain in his knees seemed to double.

"Look at that, you lot…Potter fought! He fought it, and he damn near beat it! We'll try that again, Potter, and the rest of you, pay attention. Watch his eyes, that's were you see it. Very good, Potter, very good indeed! They'll have trouble controlling you!"

Naruto snickered loudly, attracting Moody's attention.

"Don't think it's a simple task of throwing off the Imperious Curse, laddie," Moody said with a smirk that twisted his already twisted face. "You're next."

"Gee, what luck," Naruto muttered.

Harry fell on his face. Harry did a cartwheel and landed on his back. Harry started doing a handstand, and fell on his head. Finally, Harry was completely able to throw off the Imperius Curse. Hooray for Harry!

All during the meantime, Gaara was mentally recording what he saw and interpreting what was happening.

"So, Mr. Uzumaki, care to try?"

"I'll pass, thank you," Naruto muttered.

"Don't be that way," Moody said. He pointed his wand at Naruto. "_Imperio!_"

And then, Gaara, sitting next to him, noticed the instantly glazed over look on Naruto's face as he stood up.

"Hinata, what is his chakra like?" he asked her as Naruto got up.

"Ano…it's covered in Moody's spell. His body is normal, but it's all in his head."

"Thought so."

"But…his body is changing. Like…the red chakra he stores in his stomach is spreading out…"

"This…could get interesting…"

_Stand up, and do three back flips,_ a new voice in Naruto's head said.

'Okay.'

**A clear mind for me to return to. **

_Who are you? _Moody's hold on Naruto's mind faltered as he turned to another sentient being in Naruto's mind.

'Who is he...? Who are you?' Naruto asked Moody in his mind. Another thing in his head? Too many voices...

**None of your business, meddling human. Don't disgrace yourself. Don't do the backflip. **

Naruto felt himself prepare to do a back flip, but didn't notice Moody's sudden frown. Wait a minute…his head didn't feel so nicely clear anymore. He did the first back flip.

**Weak minded human. If you're letting someone else control your body...**

_Do it two more flips. _

**...then let it be me!**

The room seemed to be filled with water. Invisible water. The air was so heavy, Harry had a hard time breathing.

"T-t-this chakra!" Hinata exclaimed. Harry turned his head to look at Hinata. Perhaps this strange feeling was affecting the white eyed girl the most. The veins in her temple were popping out. "It's coming out," she said breathlessly.

"What is?" Kiba asked, voicing Harry's thoughts. Moody was struggling to control something. Almost as if he were actually trying to control two minds at once. Naruto's fox was the only thing unaffected by the magical energy holed up in the room. It seemed even more excited than usual. Naruto's eyes started turning red and his whiskers boldened. He almost seemed feral. The fox sighed, as if it knew it was going to regret this, and bit Naruto's ear.

"HELL NO!" Naruto suddenly shouted wildly. He waved his arms around in his head. "Get out! Get out get out get out, you bastards! Stop arguing, I've got a freaking headache!" Neji frowned and didn't say anything. Then again, no one was.

"Ano…Naruto-kun…?"

Naruto looked at Hinata. "Did I…say that out loud?"

"H-hai."

"Uzuma—" Moody began. The bell rang. He shook his head. "Alright, kiddies, get outta here."

Naruto immediately picked up his stuff. Half of the other kids looked gloomy. They hadn't even had the chance to do get _IMPERIO_ed.

"We'll pick up from here next time," Moody said in a hoarse voice.

Yay! I think? The class wasn't sure whether to be excited or apprehensive after Naruto's turn. And for some reason, Sasuke didn't care.

* * *

Every night, Naruto was sneaking out of the common room, and sometimes not even coming back from dinner at all. He was already wearing his winter robes, although it was barely even cold yet. He and Shino were the only ones actually wearing it. And every day, whether it was in the morning, during classes, or any time in between, Naruto was constantly falling asleep. 

Hermione was the first to notice this change in Naruto.

"Honestly," Hermione said. "It's really warm this time of year, and he's already wearing those heavy sleeves."

"Who cares?" Harry asked. "So is his friend in Slytherin."

"Yeah well, Shino has always been weird like that, hasn't he?" Ron said. "He's always been a bit funny in the head."

"And how come he's got those bags under his eyes. You'd think that with all that sleep he gets in class, he'd be a bit more energetic."

"Shino?"

"No, Ron, I meant Naruto," Hermione said bluntly. Of course. No one had seen Shino's eyes.

"Maybe he's falling behind in class work, Hermione," Harry said. "We can help him later if all this is bothering you."

But they never got the chance. Whenever they returned from dinner in the Great Hall, Naruto always managed to disappear from under his nose. He had even skipped dinner on several occasions which was, according to Naruto's friend Sakura in Ravenclaw, very unlike him since he could have all the free ramen he wanted from the '_slave work_' in the kitchens. Apparently, Hermione had brainwashed yet another victim of her spew.

And so, growing suspicious of their blond companion, Harry, Ron, and Hermione took it upon themselves to find out what Naruto was up to.

* * *

**Flashback, several days back**

"Hi, Naruto-kun!" Madoka had greeted him on the first day. She was sitting on a tree stump. After being given permission from Kakashi, Naruto had made a clearing, obliterating many trees with the Rasengan. Kurogane's girlfriend needed the place to be clear at least. "I made some bento boxes for food! I thought you might get fat from all of this Western food these wizards have been feeding you!"

"Naruto has enough ramen, Madoka," Kurogane said. "It's unhealthy."

"You're such a spoilsport, Kuro-kun," she replied. She brushed away her hair and tied it back with a cord. "It would be nice if you let loose once in a while."

"Yeah, _Kuro-kun_," Naruto said mockingly. "Listen to your girlfriend!"

"Shut up, damn you!" Kurogane said, throwing a wooden sword at him. It hit Naruto in the middle of the face, spinning like a shuriken.

"I'm his servant, silly," Madoka said. She started to stand up. "You alive there, Naruto?"

"Madoka, Naruto's not unconscious or anything. You don't need to stand up."

"Yes sir, el capitan!" Madoka said, giving Kurogane a silly salute. She sat down immediately.

"Yeah I'm alive...And somehow, being his 'servant' doesn't sound any better," Naruto said with a thoughtful look on his face, getting up and rubbing his face.

"Stand up, Naruto," Kurogane said. Naruto frowned and got back up off the ground, wiping the dirt from the ground off of his painfully bright, neon orange jump suit. And to think that, with the black on it, Naruto claimed that the clothes he wore years ago were much brighter. Kurogane shuddered at this fashion offense.

"How come you speak English?" Naruto said, noticing he didn't have to wear a spelled hitai-ate band or a spelled anything.

"Unlike other shinobi, the Sound educates us in several languages," Kurogane said, "which just proves how much more I am superior to you."

"Are you implying something?" Naruto asked him.

"Don't use words you don't understand, Naruto. And even if I were, you lack the mind to understand any implications."

"You and your big words."

"It doesn't matter whether I use my vocabulary or not. The fact remains that you have too little capacity to understand. What matters is your training."

"Just how old are you, anyway?" Naruto asked suddenly.

"Excuse me?"

"You're like, eighteen years old, but you talk like an old man. Unless you're a body stealing pervert like Orochimaru and you're actually fifty years old too and you're lying about your age."

"You are not to speak ill of Orochimaru," Kurogane said coldly. "-sama," he added with an afterthought.

"Fine, fine," Naruto said. "Just teach me something! I'm bored."

And so Kurogane taught him. Madoka often fell asleep, as it was in the middle of the night, so she often spoke to him before the sparring. And, occasionally, she even sparred with Naruto too, although Kurogane hated it.

* * *

**Back to the present**

For the past several days, Naruto had been getting the snot beat out of him every single night. Kurogane had definitely arrived. The first time he came, he had been nice enough to give Naruto a heads up on what he was going to do. First, they were going to see what Naruto had learned the past few weeks he had been at this 'wizard school' (nothing, really). Next would be to teach Naruto to repel genjutsu, which he seriously needed work on. After that was maybe a few more ninjutsu tricks, along with taijutsu. Basically… Naruto would be doing a lot of sparring and getting beat up.

However, after several sleepless nights of sparring, Naruto and Kurogane were almost on par with one another.

"You know," Kurogane said. "I find it difficult to believe that you had defeated me in the first place. It must have been blind luck."

"It was talent!" Naruto insisted.

"Whatever. I still have yet to meet your fox."

"Which one, Kyuubi? Or Vulpes?"

"Vulpes"

"Oh yeah, I brought him."

"Where?"

Naruto snorted. "Madoka's been playing with him for two nights and you haven't even noticed! And you say _I'm_ stupid?"

He looked over at Madoka. Naruto was right. But why didn't he notice that animal?

Kurogane's eyes widened under his shadowy bangs. "That thing…is _not _a real fox."

"Huh?"

"What are you talking about, Kuro-kun?" The 'fox' stared at him.

"For instance, the Bengal Fox from Southern Asia is small and gray. The Corsac fox from eastern Eurasia has a yellowish or reddish brown coat. The Hoary fox, also from Eurasia, has a gray back and a white stomach. The pale fox is in the desert, usually yellow or brown. A fox called 'Ruppell's Fox' is a gray desert fox. The South African Silver Fox has a gray coat with a yellow coat. The few that actually inhabit the Five countries seem to vary substantially from one another, however, they all share the same characteristics that are: they do _not_ look like that."

"You know a lot about foxes, Kuro-kun," Madoka commented.

"So… what?" Naruto asked.

"Let me put it simply: _There are no real species of fox with completely crimson fur_," Kurogane said, gritting his teeth. "Do you _not_ realize that this creature is not normal? It has a chakra signature and can completely conceal itself! It is intelligent enough and quiet enough for me to not notice it when I can hear things miles away."

"Which must be pretty annoying when you move in big crowds," Naruto said.

"It is," Madoka said. She grinned. "So...his fur is all red? How pretty! I want to see!"

"You idiots! The point is that the only fox to have fur like this is the demon fox _Kyuubi! _Demons! That thing is not a fox!" The fox snickered and stuck its tongue out at him. "See? Did you see that? It laughed at me and stuck its tongue out at me! Are you two complete fools!"

"Relax, Kuro-kun, you'll have a heart attack or something. And just so you know, Kuro-kun, you should direct your yelling only to Naruto. I can't help it. I can't see."

"You can't see?" Naruto asked her incredulously.

"My eyes are all blank, Naruto-kun. Haven't you noticed? I'm blind."

"I lost a sparring match to a _blind_ girl?"

"Hey, I'm really good at fighting, if you don't know," Madoka protested, looking slightly offended.

"That's right," Kurogane said. "She can't become a jounin because Orochimaru-sama forbids that my servant reaches status equal to my own, but she is very powerful for a shinobi with such a disadvantage. And—But that's not the point!"

"Look, Kurogane, Vulpes hasn't done anything wrong yet. Somebody probably just dyed him while he was asleep. I've done that to Akamaru before. Boy was Kiba pissed. He said Akamaru's name shouldn't be taken that seriously, although red _does_ look really bad on him, I suppose."

"Wait, while he was asleep?" It seemed hard to think that someone could dye an animal without it waking up to snap at you.

"Yeah, he was left sleeping in a shop for about fourteen of fifteen years."

"… Foxes in the wild live only three to four years. The longest a _real _fox that ever lived was twelve years. Naruto, that thing is not a fox. I don't know what it is, but it's definitely not a fox."

"Maybe it's a demon," Naruto said.

"Then why are you carrying a demon back and forth to class?"

"Who cares? It's not hurting anyone," Naruto said. "Besides, wouldn't having a demon around with us help us in the future?"

Kurogane frowned. "I suppose…it may be true. But I don't think this fox would be _that_ powerful. I doubt it'll be any use of us in the future." Kurogane jerked his head, looking around and seeing nothing.

"First, you think it might be all dangerous and powerful. Now you think it's really weak?" Naruto asked incredulously.

"It could get in the way," Kurogane said with a scowl. "When we take over the Five Countries..."

"With the exception of the Leaf and the Sand, as promised."

"...it may get in our way."

"Nah, you can trust Vulpes. You're smart, right, Vul—?"

"Shut up, Naruto," Kurogane said in a serious tone.

"That's rude, interrupting me like that."

"I said shut up. Someone's here. Several someones, at that." Naruto looked around.

"Kurogane, you're just being paranoid," Naruto said nervously.

"Use your ears, fool," Kurogane said. "I taught you to use your senses to better your advantage in battle. There…are three strangers here. I cannot pinpoint their exact location. There are two taller ones, a little taller than you, Naruto. And a shorter one. Roughly twenty-three feet left of Madoka's stump. Madoka."

Naruto, who had been training to sense the use of chakra, felt the whole area fill up with her energy. So…that's how she could see, Naruto mused to himself. He hadn't noticed the thin layer of chakra on the field all around him before he realized that she was blind.

"I can't See them," she said. "It looks like a big glob of something with three pairs of feet under it. I think they're covered in one big blanket or something. No…wait, it seems that one is running away with the blanket. Long hair. We need to catch her."

She removed the thread from her hair. Naruto watched as it extended and, like a snake, the cord whipped around blindly in the forest. However, the two boys left behind were now visible.

"Harry? Ron?" Naruto said out loud.

"You two are planning to take over your home countries?" Harry asked them incredulously.

"Well, we find ourselves unsatisfied with the effectiveness current leaders and how they treat a certain group of peoples," Kurogane answered coolly before Naruto could say anything, "but yes, we are."

"Hey, _I'm_ not!" Naruto said, but he was ignored.

"You're bloody crazy!" Ron said. They both had their wands out, pointed at Kurogane and Naruto.

"So…" Madoka said casually. "What's going on here?" The threads in her hand were still combing through the forests. Naruto frowned. The third person must have been Hermione.

"Madoka-chan, this is not the time to act silly."

"Oh right," she said. She made a face, mocking his scowl. "Like this?"

Kurogane snorted. "Better."

"Good. Anyway, boys, it's three-to-two. You wanna try to take us on?"

"But you're blind," Ron said.

"Even blind, she is much more powerful than you children," Kurogane said.

"See? Hah!" Madoka clapped her hands together (rather awkwardly, considering she still had several dozens of strings combing through the forest in between her fingers), pleased by the compliment.

"But she's not fighting," Kurogane finished.

"What? But, but Kuro-kun, that's-that's just not fair!"

"I forbid you to fight. You can't even_ move_ from that spot, understand?"

"Nooooo," she whined. "That's not right. I can handle them myself."

"You use up so much chakra to see what happens that you're _always_ vulnerable to _anything_. The only time you're actually useful for attacking is when you can't see."

"That's sooo not true!" Madoka stuck her tongue out at him.

"Sorry to interrupt your lovers spat," Naruto said, "but we've got these two to entertain."

"Not much to fight anyway," Kurogane muttered to Madoka, who was sitting sulkily. Just two little kids, probably Naruto's age yet not half as powerful.

"I beg ter differ," a voice said.

"Yeesh, Hagrid too?" Naruto yelped as a man twice Kurogane's height approached. He had a large dog with him too. Okay, so things might get a little difficult.

"Hagrid! Naruto is a traitor to his own people!"

"Am nooooot!" They ignored Naruto again.

"Naruto, I never expected this from you. I always thought you were a good student, being in Gryffindor. Hermione's on the way to getting Professor Dumbledore too. Don't fight."

"I'm no traitor!" Naruto growled. "I've sworn my allegience to the Leaf, and I don't go back on my word. That is my nindo! That is my ninja way!"

"Naruto, that is the most idiotic, pathetic thing I have _ever _heard," Kurogane said. "Your people trod on you like a pathetic mat. You'll learn the truth sooner or later. You're low on chakra. We just need to stop these three and Hermione from telling the world. And then you can take the chuunin exams."

"But I'm not supposed to attack Harry Potter!" Naruto said.

"Then I will. You stay back too."

"Wai—!" Kurogane seemed to disappear. Naruto could barely move. Just earlier, they were even while they were sparring. How come Kurogane was still able to move so quickly? It wasn't even half as fast as earlier that night, but it was still much faster than anything Naruto could manage at the moment.

Hagrid pointed his crossbow and shot it in front of Harry, who jumped back. Kurogane scowled, now standing in front of the arrow, near Harry. That arrow almost hit him. Fang barked loudly, and was answered by Vulpes's yipe. Kurogane was continuously attempting to attack each one of them but, each time, was stopped, narrowly dodging an arrow. He was nowhere near as fast as he was when he was when he was at 'full power', although Naruto probably wouldn't have been able to keep up, which made Kurogane wonder why Naruto was weaker all of a sudden.

Naruto looked at Madoka, who sulkily sat on the tree stump.

"Why aren't you helping him?" he asked her.

"I am bound by my word and a jutsu. I must obey him," she said. "Why not you?"

"I have no chakra."

"That's rubbish. You have the Kyubi."

"Kyubi?" Hagrid muttered. Naruto frowned. Of course. Hagrid with his giant ears could probably pick up a lot more sounds than normal sized people. Like an elephant.

"I'm not relying on a stupid fox!" Naruto growled. He used the rasengan, gathering the remains of his chakra. If Kurogane could surpass his own limits, Naruto could too. Now, all he had to do was stop Kurogane from killing them all. He ran forward and...Harry pointed his wand at _him_!

"Hey, wait! I'm not—!"

"_Stupefy_!" Shit. Naruto flinched, instinctively focusing his chakra into something like a glass wall in front of him. After training with Kurogane, he would do it without a second thought. Of course, it wouldn't be much use anyway. It was meant to block physical attacks.

Naruto saw a red light but didn't feel like he was hit by a spell, but something was definitely wrong. What sort of genjutsu was this? He was still in the forest but…something was wrong! Where was everyone?

He ran around madly. Where was he? There was no clearing. There were no people.

"Naruto!" someone cried. "Come back!" Madoka?

"What the hell do you think you're doing!" Definitely Kurogane, who

"Yer goin' deeper inta th' forest!" No one had that weird accent except Hagrid.

Where was he? Where was _everyone_? He could hear voices, but not the people. Wait, not the voices anymore either. He kept on running until he heard something strange...

Duh-duh-duh-DUN! Fanfares trumpet as Vikki comes to the rescue!

Vicky? Naruto paused. Other words from other strangers had no affect on his mind in its current state. But these words were not really words. They were…something else.

And then, a nasty, red-furred demon of a fox (but not _the_ demon fox) appeared in the darkness of the forest and attacked Naruto's face. What the hell was going one?

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "…Vikky?"

Also known as Vulpes, the voice replied. Eh?

"Y-you _talk_!" Naruto said.

Oh my god, I DO! Call the _Daily Prophet!_ I'm a bloody talking fox! Honestly, Naruto, humans aren't the only species in this universe that had a spoken language.

"What the hell?" Naruto said.

Let's cut the crap, Naruto. I talk, big deal. But either Harry screwed up the Stunning spell or you did. You're in the middle of the forest. You're lost. You're senses have gone haywire. There are bigger things than talking foxes here. Seriously. The 'forbidden' part of the Forbidden Forest sorta implies something doesn't it?

"What happened?"

You've been Stupefied.

"What?"

The spell 'Stupefy' produces a bolt of light and stuns whoever it is cast upon, generally knocking the victim unconscious. A single Stunning Spell is not strong enough to do any lasting damage to a victim, but multiple stunners cast on one target can often cause serious harm. The spell Ennervate can undo the effects and bring the victims back to consciousness. 

"Great. Can you do that to me then?" Too much talk, too little action.

Baka! I need a wand, yours is broken, the spell that hit you and affected you was altered onimpact, and I DON'T HAVE THUMBS! Are you an idiot? Anyway, it wouldn't work because of your shield.

"Shield?"

When you trained with Kurogane, you made a shield! Do you not even remember your lessons! It probably got rid of the unconsciousness effect and just canceled out your senses. That's probably what caused this reaction from a stunning spell. It only got your senses but not your body, since the chakra you forced into a wall kept you from bodily harm.

"Huh?"

Idiot human.

"Stupid fox."

Think of it as a genjutsu then! And break it!

"How?"

Kurogane taught you, you fool! And do you not realize that you're in a dark forest surrounded by spiders? Now that he thought about it, the floor really was getting quite crunchy. Now is the best time to run.

"Right…" Naruto ran into a tree.

Baka! What on earth do you even remember from Kurogane's lessons! Listen with the wind and all that stuff! For Kyubi's sake, I'm not even the one who is supposed to be learning this junk and I remember more of it than you do! Just get rid of the 'genjutsu' first. Pull all your chakra back.

"But this is magic, not genjutsu."

Listen to your pet! And...holy Kyu-sama!

Alright…so if I get caught in genjutsu…what did that ero-sennin say again? Hm...can't remember. Okay, then Kurogane's lesson. Someone casts a genjutsu spell on you, get rid of your chakra or force it out with more chakra. (1) Okay, that was nice and simple and fairly recent.

'_Alright stupid fox…I guess I _will_ borrow your chakra again. But this is the last time. After this, it's goodbye demon chakra!_

Forcing all of the chakra inside himself, the empty forest suddenly... was filled with giant spiders.

Are you done now! Vulpes/Vikki growled, gnawing at a particularly large spider.

"What the hell?" Naruto said. He grabbed Vulpes/Vikki by the scruff of the neck and they ran away. But then a thin cord caught his ankle. Naruto yelped as he fell forward and the string slowly pulled him back. Back towards the masses of spiders. All of a sudden, the cord on his ankle pulled him back at an alarming speed. "AAAAARGH!" Naruto flew _through_ the next of spiders—those unfortunate enough to be unable to get away were crushed under him (EW!). "Maaaaake iiiiit stooooop!" After about seventy feet of being dragged through the forest, whatever was pulling him finally stopped.

"Found you!" a voice said cheerfully.

"Madoka!" Naruto said. "I couldn't see and then there was this genjutsu thingie and then I had to break it and then there were spiders everywhere and then I had to run aw—"

"Shh, you need to go back to your school," she whispered. "You're headmaster came. He said something strange, and Kurogane left. It was like, Legi-legili…lejililililense? I didn't hear what, but the old man must be powerful. There's something funny about that guy. He let us go. I mean, we were all attacking this time, and we couldn't even touch him. He says you're excused, as long as you don't attack Harry again. Which one was Harry, any? The emerald-green or the red-orange?"

"Well…Harry has green eyes, and Ron has reddish orange hair…"

"Ah. Okay. Good, then, Kurogane kicked _Ron_." Naruto let out a groan. Madoka continued on cheerfully as if she hadn't heard him.

"Anyway, Kurogane was worried about you and told me to make sure you were okay and didn't do anything stupid. I don't think Dumbledore is very trusting of us, but at least he's letting us go. Still, I doubt we will return. Today is September 24, right? At least you've got a few more days to recover completely for the exams. Maybe we'll see you there? This is goodbye Naruto. And take care of him, Vikki."

The fox barked in response. Madoka grinned and left.

"For a blind girl, she sure is well coordinated," Naruto muttered, brushing spider pieces off his clothes. Uuuuugh... Gross. "Wait, how come she knew you call yourself 'Vicki'? And why do you call yourself 'Vicki'? And what are you? And was Kurogane right? And what's with you anyway, you're a freak fox. Wait, that means I'm a freak ninja! I understand foxes! Oh my kage!"

So…do you expect me to actually answer or are you going to babble a little bit longer?

Naruto glared at the fox.

Alright, alright. So demanding, children these days. If you haven't noticed, while you and Kurogane fought, I had been having the most intelligent conversations I have had in quit a while. She's much smarter. In fact, I'd say she wasn't human. Of course, maybe just _some_ humans are just stupid. Particularly the ones I've met so far…

"Are you implying something?"

Gee, of course not, dobe.

"You're talking like Sasuke."

Fine then, you're just so troublesome…making my change the way I talk just for you.

"Stop that!" Naruto said. Now Shikamaru?

…

"You say something?"

No, I'm being Shino.

"You're a _freak_."

I'm your HERO! I saved your butt back there and I was freaking awesome! Did you NOT see me bite off those giant spiders' legs? I am the most awesomest fox in the world! Muahahahaha!

"Who the hell are you imitating now?"

Inner Sakura.

"Who?"

Aren't you wondering why I can talk! You're so slow!

"Oh yeah…" He's an idiot! "So why can you talk?"

I am a demon!

Naruto looked down at the adorable little fox. It had a huge, bushy, bottle brush tail. Its white ears had small black tips. And its eyes were giant morsels of dark chocolate. Yum… Wait, that's not the point.

"B-but you're an animal! And you're _small_ and _cute!_"

I slept in this form waiting nearly fifteen years for you, you idiot, the fox said. And that's all you have to say? 

"A fifteen-year long nap, yet you're still always falling asleep in my robes…"

Vulpes/Vikki was surprised by his overall reaction. It was a demon! When you meet one, you're supposed to run and scream! Not blurt stupid comments and call it being SMALL and CUTE!

"So…I don't get it…"

Grandpa Kyu-san is in you.

"G-Grandpa! 'Kyu-san?' As in the Kyubi? He's your grandfather!"

Kyu-san is our god. He is the grandfather to ALL foxes, demon and normal.

"You're a fox-god?"

…No. I'm a fox.

"A _normal_ fox…?"

No, I know _some_ jutsus… the fox muttered sulkily.

"So _not_ a normal fox."

…More along the lines of a demon-let.

"Nani?"

The fox sighed. Lesson time. We foxes are sometimes born with the capability of…controlling chakra. Yeah. Chakra. Even fewer of us manage to very long, but every blue moon—

"Blue moon?"

In other words: very rarely. It's _very_ _rare_, but we usually either live for a year or live for centuries. Kyu-sama's not the longest living demon lord, but he's the strongest of us all. He beat ol' Nekomata by three centuries, and Neko's ANCIENT.

"How old are you?"

I'm about eighteen, technically, but I didn't age while I slept. I'm four. 

"Only four?"

I'm ALMOST FIVE!

"Great. What's with the jutsus?"

I told you, I could use some chakra. As a demon, I have a few extra talents. I have a hobby of imitating things. Well?

"Well what?"

Aren't you going to asked me who I am? My gender? My other talents?

"Oh. Um…who are you, what are you, and what can you do?"

The fox sighed. As a demon cub, I don't get a real name until I turn fifty.

"Wow."

It used to be a whole century. And until I get my name, I have no gender. Right now, this is not even considered a body, but rather a type of solidified demon chakra. Hence the redness. Fox demon equals red chakra equals red fur. But, as you can see, I'm not all red. I don't go all red until I'm a lot stronger. My physical body is a fox form because I have the fox chakra attributes. This body is called a gigai. I get to leave this gigai once I become a full-fledged demon fox. Once I get my name, I'll get to choose my gender too. 

"Oh…I don't get half of that but okay… Wait, no gender? That would explain your missing—"

ANYway you'll have to find out my other talents for yourself.

"Hey, then why ask me to ask you!"

I never asked you.

"Yes you did!"

All I asked is if you were GOING to ask. Ha ha, stupid! The fox snickered.

Naruto groaned. "And…so…you call yourself _Vikki_?"

You named me Vulpes. You could say a fox's 'surname' would be kitsune, I suppose. Anyway, Vulpes is a stupid name. So V and K makes VIKKI. I'm so creative. I love myself. You won't find a fox out there that's _half _as smart as me.

"So you're planning to be a girl?"

No. I want to be male.

"But Vikki's a girl's name, isn't it?"

I like it.

"So I call you Vikki now?"

What a mere human calls me is none of your business. Are you finished talking now? Because I want to go back. A fox needs his beauty sleep.

Naruto snorted. Right. He stretched. It must be near midnight.

"Yeah…let's go back…"

* * *

**A bit earlier that night**

Kurogane had been struck by an arrow. Madoka cried out when she heard the whistling of the arrow stop suddenly by a strange 'thwuck' sound. But hearing the loud chirping of dozens of bats, she sighed in relief. It was his Koumori (Bat) Bunshin no Jutsu. (2)

"Now, now," a surprisingly pleasant voice said. "I believe fighting is against the rules." Madoka used her chakra and saw a sparkly blue figure there. How come she couldn't See it before? And who has sparkly chakra signatures anyway?

"Dumbledore!" the green chakra being said to the voice. "He attacked us! And Naruto's planning to take over his home country or something!"

"Hm…_Legilimens…_" Kurogane froze, confused. Madoka let out a small cry. She saw a faint blue mist come from the sparkly blue on to Kurogane's gray chakra. It went straight to his head and his chakra went all distorted. Was he possessing Kurogane with some sort of Yamanaka bloodline technique? Kurogane could probably through it off with enough effort, but just how powerful was this twinkly blue man?

"Get out!" Kurogane growled angrily. Madoka flinched. She had never heard him like that. He was always yelling at Naruto, which was a good sign, as he rarely spoke to anyone else aside from her. But this growl was different. This blue chakra had done something to Kurogane. She stood up immediately but felt something force her back down.

"Madoka, I told you not to move," Kurogane said coolly.

She got back down. The mark on her back hurt.

"Kinuta Kurogane," the blue chakra said. "You are permitted to leave Hogwarts. You may enter should you speak directly to me, the headmaster of this school, and obtain my permission. I understand your defensive actions against me, but I will not allow you to harm any of my students of professors. You have an hour to leave. If you wish to return, I shall make myself clear: do not harm any of my students and you must come to me for permission to enter my school. That is my last warning. Goodbye. Ron, Hermione, return to your dormitories. You will not speak of this even ever again. Harry, come with me. Hagrid, thank you for your assistance and for saving Ron and Harry." And the blue sparkly chakra left with the green one. The smaller two chakras—a reddish orange hue and a dark pink color—left with the giant brown one.

Kurogane stood up. Wait, when had he gone down?

"Madoka…" he said.

"Yes, Kuro…gane-sama?"

"Sorry," he muttered quietly.

"What?" Madoka had good ears (though hardly anything compared to Kurogane's), but she could hardly believe what she had just heard.

"I _said _go find Naruto," he amended. "Make sure he's okay, and tell him that we are leaving now."

"Y-yes, Kurogane-sama…"

"'Kuro-kun', you mean…" he said as she left.

* * *

"Professor Dumbledore, I don't get what's going on," Harry said as they entered the headmaster's office. He looked at the interesting silver trinkets that were scattered across the room. 

"I suppose you noticed how Hogwarts, for the first time since its establishment several centuries ago, has accepted students beyond the first year."

"Yeah!" It never happened before. No one was admitted past the age of eleven.

"And that Naruto and his companions seem rather out of place in the wizarding world."

"Yeah!" They didn't know anything about magic and even had to take after school tutorials specially appointed to them.

"And that there are rumors flying about, saying that there are no such things as Japanese wizards."

"Yeah!"

"And how dangerous mercenary-like figures are suddenly entering a school of magic in which they are probably not receiving any real reward in return."

"Well…I didn't think about _that_ but...yeah."

"Well," Dumbledore said, "I'm afraid I can't tell you everything about them."

"Come again?" Wow, what a letdown…

"Well, this information that I withhold from you is rather confidential. They really don't fit in our world. It _seems_ that, ah, Japanese wizards use completely different spells than us. However, that is incorrect. While we use wands to channel our energy, they use handseals to channel what they call chakra. At this very moment, they are learning to use our magic. So…as our first item of business, I want to experiment. How would you feel if you were going to be allowed to learn their techniques?"

"Can I?" Harry asked excitedly, forgetting all about the Naruto-wants-to-take-over-the-world business.

"I will ask Kakashi about it later, then," Dumbledore said, looking rather pleased with himself. "In any case, when I accepted these students into our school, I thought it would be rather strange to send them all to the first years. After all, Kankurou, the oldest of them, is going turn seventeen in less than a year. Almost a seventh year. My, my…. Anyhow, Neji, Tenten, and Lee are all fifteen going on sixteen. The others are fourteen and fifteen, some moving on to sixteen. How would they feel to be placed in the same level as eleven year olds? Anyway, it helps that some are your age, yes?"

"Ah, but why are they here anywa—"

"I'm getting to that," Dumbledore said. "Having our little mercenary friends here is beneficial to both sides. You see, they really _are _mercenaries."

"Really? But, they're, like, so...they're not like mercenaries." These little kids?

"Well, they are still young, but they are considered adults where they are from. Now, Harry, I must tell you that anything I say tonight must remain a secret. Can I trust you with this?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. I know I can. I'm sure that you're heard the rumors about no Japanese wizards. That's not necessarily true. There _are _wizards in Japan. It's just that there aren't very many of them. _Very_ few, indeed. They prefer technology. You can see that with all of those very interesting inventions they have. Rather amusing… Well, our friends are not Japanese wizards."

"Somehow, I saw that coming," Harry muttered.

"They are called shinobi. We have only heard legends of their…their kind."

"They're another species _and_ they can do magic?" Harry asked.

"Well, not quite another species. We believe that…they could either be like wizards or like normal muggles."

"Muggles that do magic and other strange tricks."

"Well, we have never really _met_ one, aside from now."

"Why not?"

"The shinobi are a very secretive group of people, Harry," Dumbledore said. "However, there is a small possibility that they do not even come from this…world. It's rather difficult to explain."

"I can tell: I don't get it."

"Their arrival in this world has actually been one of the biggest events in history. Of course, not many people know about it. After all, not many people know about them either. Not in great detail, anyway. I believe that many of them called…missing-nin, I believe, run back and forth between our world, the muggles, and their own. Missing-nin are on the run from their villages. Like escaped convicts. But it seems to require some very special preparations to come here."

"Meaning…?"

"You cannot go to their world very easily. There are rumors, of course, that the Ministry of Magic has recently created a device to enter and exit their world. However, those rumors remain unconfirmed to many... I do know the details of their arrival, but it would be best to avoid bringing it up at this point, as no one is sure what the...device used to bring them does exactly."

"Then how did they get here?"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures. One of the great leaders of a place called the Leaf Village from the Fire Country had made an alliance with the Village of the Sand, which is in the Wind Country. Shortly after the alliance, a young, yet astonishingly powerful shinobi ran off with a very small yet powerful country called the Sound, seduced by the promise of power, enough power to kill a certain person. About two and a half years later, the newly appointed Kazekage, leader of the Village of the Sand, was abducted by an organization called Akatsuki, which translated into the 'Red Moon'. Not that that is of much significance to the story. His people got him back in pieces, but, luckily, they were able to pull him back together with quick thinking and a large amount of powerful and somewhat illegal 'spells'." Dumbledore chuckled at the joke with twinkly eyes. Harry was confused.

"I don't get it." What was he smiling about?

"It seems that another young, pretty and impressive shinobi had been able to bring him back to life. He wasn't quite _dead_ dead, in a sense. You know how muggles shock a person back to life? Well, she was able to bring him back in seconds—a great phenomenon, but I do believe there was outside help, involving the powers of something that is not human and the knowledge of a currently deceased old woman who had studied the art of raising the dead. Anyway, the Leaf and the Sand villages are in a tight spot right now.

"They have declared 'war' on Akatsuki and the sound. It can't be considered a real war considering the fact that none of them are really countries, but they are not on friendly terms right now. Of course, there is also the Sound's ally, Hidden Village of the Rock. The Mist Village is in political turmoil at the moment, and they are currently unable to assist Konoha in their battles. The Hidden Waterfall Village, Sand's newest ally, is very small and weak right now. The Rain and the Cloud are busy. The Rain Village is dealing with the recent breakout of a captive held for thirteen years."

"It's almost like Sirius."

"Yes, both innocent of any crime, held for thirteen years, and broken out of the most secure prisons in the world."

"The prisoner was in Azkaban? And he's innocent too?"

"No. _She _was locked up several months after her birth, doomed to live out the rest of her life in a cage in a mountain. But I hear that her parents who abandoned her adopted a new child to replace her, and a very great child she was. She joined an elite missing-nin hunting squad called the ANBU. But then she was assigned to guard her 'sister' in the mountain. It seems that Miu, the Anbu, helped and encouraged her sister to a, ah, breakout. Haruka, the prisoner, and Miu, the newly dubbed 'missing-nin', were on the run from two enemies the moment they left—the hunter-nin and the Akatsuki. It seems that Miu had disappeared, most likely killed, and Haruka...we have not heard from yet. They were in the Cloud territory, where we are _assuming_ she met a shinobi by the name of Hakoi Kisho. He was just like her, but I can not explain in detail. Soon afterward, Haruka, Kisho, his two younger twin siblings, and his two teammates were attacked. Haruka and Kisho were carried off. Only two—the girl twin and his female companion—survived, I heard. I cannot be sure. That happened some time during the summer. Very recent."

"Are Haruka and Kisho alive?"

"No, I do not believe they are. Naruto and his companions, however, may be able to answer that. I do not know for sure. Now, to our current affairs, you are probably wondering, why did I hire the strange people to come to our school and how in the world had I found them?"

"Yeah."

"Well, their leader Tsunade, the most powerful shinobi in the Fire Country, and I met through some very interesting...experiments, coincidentally, both occurring at exactly the same time. Must be fate… Anyway, we discovered some type of barrier between our home and theirs. We're not sure of their exact location, and whether they are even from the same world, but we do believe that there are certain places in all three worlds where you can easily pass through, but in other cases, you would need a Portkey. Or the type of device that we have discovered. Information regarding the machine will have to be postponed until we learn more about it. We discussed things and found that by creating an partnership between our people would be beneficial to both sides, for it seems that there are rumors of the leader of the Sound, Orochimaru, is meddling in strange magics. Coincidentally enough, he is described to be very... snake-like."

"Like Voldemort..."

"Indeed. There is a possibility that they may be forging a temporary allegience with one another. Rumors are unconfirmed. I just want you to be careful, Harry. In any case, Tsunade, the Kazekage, and I decided that we would take several shinobi in. I hired them so they can protect a very precious object at this school."

"What is it?" Harry asked. "What are they protecting?"

"Oh, I'm afraid I can't tell you, Harry, but I _can_ assure you that this will be vital to the future of the wizarding world, and perhaps even the muggle world. They don't know the power that it has, but, I suppose, the ones Tsunade called 'geniuses' are probably figuring it out right now."

Harry would have whistled if he knew how to. Wow, whatever weapon it was, it must have been powerful.

"So, while they are here protecting it, they are protected as well. From their own enemies," Dumbledore said. "Because, you see, there are several of these students—three of them—who are targeted by their enemies. Two of them by the Akatsuki, and one by the Sound. The Akatsuki wishes to take certain attributes of these two children—excuse me, I meant mercenaries. The Sound want to kill the other. Either that, or they just want him back. I mentioned earlier how a young and power hungry shinobi left Konoha in the pursuit of greater power ran to the Sound, yes? Well, recently, they were able to forcibly—and rather violently—convince him to return to Konoha. It also helped that the leader of the Sound who seduced him with his power fled, leaving the poor, confused child behind to fend for himself against his former allies. Not that he could be considered 'harmless'. In any case, he has returned to the Leaf. Though he had a high status, being the last U...the last of a great family, he is currently in disgrace for his defection. Hopefully, people will regain their trust of him. He used to be very popular with them, being the last, yet a very promising, heir of his clan. Although I hear he is very popular with the girls here, and from the Leaf Village. He may yet be redeemed."

"Why does he want so much power?"

"Vengeance. Against a man who had betrayed and wronged him in his past. The boy's entire family is gone now, because of that man. That man whom he had complete trust in. Guidance. Love. He want to kill the man who murdered his entire clan in one night, which is an impressive defeat, being large enough to make up a very small village and known as the strongest clan in the Leaf."

"_'Their'_ enemies…they're that powerful? What if these people come and attack Hogwarts?" Harry asked nervously.

"Their enemies are powerful shinobi from their world, but I assure you that you do not need to worry. This castle has been protected by powerful charms and spells. Should anybody, friend, foe, or stranger, meet the power of this magic, they'll probably remember something important they have to do. Back at their home. And should they come and break through the spells, the professors and I are fully capable of stopping them, or at least holding them off long enough for others to escape. I will never let my students get hurt. And don't forget, with all these people coming over for the Triwizard Tournament, we are bringing in hundreds of Aurors and trained mediwizards. Security will heighten. Do not fret."

Harry was relieved and embarrassed at the same time. Of course they were safe! Dumbledore was here, and he was the strongest wizard in history.

"So…" Harry said, "I suppose you aren't going to tell me about Naruto and those two weird people?"

"No."

"But-but they could be dangerous!" Harry said.

"Should word get out about Naruto's... condition, the consequences shall be dire," Dumbledore said. "The only people in this school who know of his condition are me, Professor Kakashi, and the boy himself. And perhaps..."

"…Who?"

"Nevermind, Harry. However, I would like for you to not tell anyone about this incident. Even your friends and the other shinobi. _Especially_ the other shinobi. But I assure you, even if you are concerned for their well-being, Naruto means no harm to come to his companions. He has become very close to them. I hardly believe that he will not risk, or even sacrifice, his own life to save them. In any case, you may return to the Gryffindor Common room."

"Do you think Naruto came back from the forest? It's dangerous out there."

"Do not worry, Harry," Dumbledore said. "Even if he did not return, I would not worry. The boy is fully capable of taking care of himself."

Harry nodded, relieved. After the encounter in the forest, it would be rather awkward to face him now. "'Night, Professor Dumbledore," he said.

"Good night, Harry."

Dumbledore smiled to himself. Harry was actually much like himself when he was much younger. But now, for the more pressing matters. The encounter with that man, Kinuta Kurogane, had immediately made him aware of the pressing dangers.

Naruto was coming back from the Forbidden Forest.

"Fawkes," Dumbledore said. The phoenix woke up and stretched its neck. He tied a note onto Fawkes's leg. _The password is Chocolate Frog._ "Bring Naruto _and _his fox to me."

It cawed a little before leaving.

Several moments later, something thudded into the entrance of his office.

"Ow! Stupid rock!" a voice said. "Er…what do I do know, Vikki? ...Oh, yeah, thanks. ...I'm not stupid! Whatever... Chocolate Frog!"

Dumbledore heard the statue move aside for Naruto as he walked in.

"Isn't that a candy? I think I ate some on the trai—holy fuck! Professor Dumbledore!"

"'Holy fuck' indeed," Dumbledore replied with a little smile.

Naruto bowed lowly on the floor. "Dumbledore sir, I'm really sorry about the Forbidden Forest, I tried to get Kurogane to stop, but he's just crazy! Believe me, I tried to surprise him by jumping out the bushes and he nearly blew me up but that's not the point and I tried to stop him and Harry, but Harry stunned me, but I messed up his spell when it hit me so I went all funny in the head and ran 'cause I got freaked out and then I got lost blind but it wore off but then I was attacked by gross killer giant spiders and then—!"

Dumbledore held up his hand to stop Naruto's blabbering. "Now, I have heard from your teacher that you are having the chuunin exams very soon, and I understand your need to train and become stronger. After all, you'll never become hokage without hard work."

"How did you know I want to become hokage?" Naruto asked, not noticing the sudden change of subject.

"Because you had made it very clear, announcing it in each and every class you attended for the first several days of school."

"Oh...okay. So what's with dragging me over here, mister? And how did that bird managed to drag me all around the school in seconds? And—"

"Be patient, Naruto," Dumbledore said. "Now, I had given you permission to train in the Forbidden Forest, but I believe it would have been much easier to _ask_ to bring a friend into our school grounds. After all, it could be very dangerous."

"They could take care of themselves," Naruto said.

"There are a large number of dangerous creatures in there," Dumbledore said, "but even if your friends could handle themselves in the forest, what of the creatures? Killing one in self-defense would upset the balance of this forest. And there's also the fact that this forest is somewhat similar to…a reserve, to protect endangered and rare species. Like the unicorns, for example, and the centaurs, although I suppose that they would have enough sense to stay away. However, there are more pressing matters at hand. For example, your hopes of world conquest—"

"It's not really world con—"

"Now, now, Naruto, I have gathered some information you might find useful from your friend Kurogane."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, are you aware that if it comes down to it, Kurogane is most likely to betray you and return to his own people?"

"Yeah. I'd do the same for Konoha."

"...Oh. Still, I would like to know _your _reasons, why you wish to gather other demon children and change the world in such a drastic way?"

"Did you really ask Kurogane? Because I find it hard to believe that you just came up to him, asked these questions, and actually got the answers. He's a really shifty guy like that, you know? He's from the Sound. He naturally changes the subject without knowing it. I mean, I tried to ask him his name once, and I end up in a conversation about politics. I didn't get any of that stuff."

"Naruto, please answer my questions," Dumbledore said. He looked patient, but something told Naruto that he shouldn't push his luck.

"You know what I am?"

"The guard for the prisoner Kyuubi, held captive in your body."

A guard, eh? Sounds better than vessel. "Alright, and you know that there are more of me, right?"

"Quite a few more. There are nine in all, yes? One for each country, ironically."

"Well, Kurogane and I wanted to help them."

"Help them?"

"Well, I do. He thinks that it would be best to bring us all into one place. Like a league of demon host kids. Of course, he might end up being leader, even though his demon isn't one of the Nine Demon Lords. He wants us to force the villages to accept us. I just thought it'd be cool to meet them all. He's not going to force us to fight people if he doesn't want. I don't think so anyway... The thing is, I was never hurt or anything because of the laws that the Third Hokage made for me, but I know not everyone was as lucky. I think Kurogane's just mainly interested in…er, how we feel about things and how we can change our lives."

"Ah, and how many of people like you have you met so far?"

"Um…him. And Gaara, although he hasn't heard anything about Kurogane. We've been a bit preoccupied lately, you know, being on the run and everything? Ah, well, you know the Akatsuki, right? I'm pretty sure Tsunade told you..."

"I have heard of them on several occasions with your teacher as well."

"Right, well, they're...taking demons. And, ah, Kurogane and I want to find them. There are rumors everywhere, so it's actually harder. Too many clues leading in different places. After we last found and fought them, they moved their base somewhere else. So...I guess I kinda ruined it for Kurogane, but at least we saved Gaara, right?"

"Yes, one is better than none, I suppose," Dumbledore replied.

"Yeah! I mean, Kurogane was annoyed, but at least Gaara's alive now and that's what counts."

"Yes, well, if you look at it from his perspective... by directly attacking the Akatsuki base, you showed them that you were aware of their location and they moved. Now they may target other guardians like you and you may have possibly just lost more than just Mr. Sabaku."

Naruto snickered at the name but managed to look a bit guilty. "Well, it'll be a long time before they take another one of us. Something about a resting time thing between taking on Jinchuuriki and another..."

"In any case, do you know why Kurogane is so… 'loyal' to the Sound?" Dumbledore asked, slightly emphasizing the word 'loyal'.

"Uh, because unlike the other Jinchuuriki, they practically worshipped the guy?"

"Well it is quite the opposite."

"You mean they gave him servants and food because they really really _hated _him?" Somehow, that didn't make sense...

"Ah, not on that part," the headmaster said. "They adored him so much, giving him anything he wanted. However, think of it like this. Your fox, Vulpes, is it?"

"Vikki. He doesn't respond to Vulpes, so it's Vikki now."

"Well, let's say Vikki is a very powerful creature that anyone in the world would die for," he said. Vikki snorted, as if to say 'What ever do you mean? I _am_.' Naruto snorted.

"Yes, well, Vikki is given to you, much like a sacrifice, along with several other creatures, desired throughout the world. Maybe some of the other creatures enjoy belonging to you, but Vikki wants his freedom. He fights for it, so you admire his spirit."

"Are you kidding? If that stupid fox wants to leave, nothing's going to stop me from getting rid of it."

"Hypothetically speaking, you don't want him to leave you alone, okay, Naruto? Anyway, you really do like having the fox around. The fox doesn't hate you or anything, but it doesn't truly like belonging to anyone. However, the leader of your village decides that this unruly behavior was unbefitting of a servant."

Naruto suddenly thought of Madoka and Kurogane. Wait, did Orochimaru cast a seal on her eyes or something? "Orochimaru sealed Madoka?"

"In a way, yes," Dumbledore said. "But it would be more simply put that she died."

"Are you kidding! She's blind _and_ dead? And I lost to her? And Orochimaru killed her? And she's dead!"

"Naruto, please be quiet."

"Okay..."

"I have heard of your recent exploits against the Akatsuki. They had removed the demon from Gaara's body, and he was considered dead, yes? But why is he still alive and kicking? His demon had been returned to his body, and your medic-nins had managed to resuscitate him." Naruto very distinctly remembered Gaara's return and shuddered.

"So...I don't get it."

"Kurogane brought Madoka back to life, at a very high cost," Dumbledore said gravely. "You see, dead wouldn't be the best definition in which she would have been placed under, but the term sealed wouldn't fit quite right either. Orochimaru forced her soul out of the body, similar to the way that the third hokage had taken Orochimaru's arms and the souls of the first and second hokage. But instead of sending them to 'hell', he temporarily encased the soul into the body of some small object, and so Kurogane and Orochimaru made a small pact between them. Orochimaru would return Madoka's soul to her body as long as she was completely obedient to him and Kurogane _and _Madoka were completely obedient to him. Kurogane agreed, and Orochimaru brought her back. Of course, he did, as you said, give her a seal, similar to your friend's cursed seal. She'd have to obey every command Kurogane issued without questioning him, just like Kurogane to Orochimaru."

"That...makes sense," Naruto said, remembering the incident in the Forbidden Forest.

"However, there is the question of Kurogane's oddly unquestioning loyalty to Orochimaru. It is obvious that he will help you so long as he is not disobeying direct orders and only while Orochimaru is not aware of the fact that you and he are plotting to overthrow him, along with several other nations. Why help him if he so despises the man for threatening his precious someone? Well, what you don't know is that Kurogane and Madoka both have spells on them. Similar to the Protean Charm. The Protean Charm is a spell in which one item is linked to several other identical items. When one item is changed, the other items are changed in the same way. For instance, with your 'shadow doppelgangers' that Professor Hatake told me about, should one have the Protean Charm placed upon it, whatever happens to one of you happens to the rest."

"I get the point," Naruto said, nodding.

"Well, it seems to be somewhat related to the Protean Charm, but Kurogane and Orochimaru are bound to each other. It's only a one-way thing. Orochimaru has a countless number of others in which he demands absolute compliance. Here is their connection to one another: Madoka has two jutsus placed on her body—one for Kurogane's commands and one for 'instant death', like Neji's cursed seal. Only Orochimaru is able to activate her cursed seal, but since Orochimaru is also connected to Kurogane's jutsu which demands her compliancy, he may also issue any order to Madoka. So it is to say…she has two masters. Orochimaru's orders first, then Kurogane's. I also believe, though I am not sure, that Kurogane also has a seal placed on his body. Hm...this is much more difficult to explain to you than I thought… Anyway, that is the true reason why Kurogane wishes to destroy the Sound Country."

"But I thought he was all loyal to him and everything?" Naruto said.

"Would you be loyal if someone betrayed you, killed all of your friends, and brought your favorite one back to life just to control you?" Dumbledore asked.

"No, but...his family..."

"To Kurogane, he only acknowledges Madoka as his family. Now, about your training and your relationship with Madoka and Kurogane: you are not to see them ever again."

"What? Why? My training isn't comp—"

"Naruto, you have to understand that this is for all three of you, and perhaps even the world. If Orochimaru knew that Kurogane and Madoka were both helping his enemies, what do you think would result?"

"_Oh_..." Naruto said. "But then who is going to train me?"

"You're not going to train. You're going to recover. I have noticed from your teachers' reports that there is not a class in which you do not attempt to fall sleep. Therefore, I am assuming that in your training with Kurogane, you have neglected sleep just to get stronger. That was very reckless of you. Therefore this week will all go into recovering your strength and bringing up your grades in class. After all, the chuunin exams are in one week. If you faint during battle, I hardly believe that you will be promoted to the rank of chuunin. Now, it is much past midnight, and I would prefer that you catch up on as much sleep as you can, Naruto. Go to your House and get some sleep."

"Yes sir," Naruto said. He left the office with this new information at hand.

* * *

(1) I do not remember how you're supposed to dispel genjutsus. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it sounds right.  
(2) I think it'll be like Shino's Kikai Bunshin, only with bats instead of bugs.

* * *

**My Thinking Corner:**

oooooooooh mmyyyyyy gooooood! FOUR FILES GONE! JUST GONE! plans for future fics are postponed, including the sequel the the Chronicles of the Demon Shinobi. sorry about the lack of goodness in this chapter. i am frustrated and am currently typing everything i can possible remember. I had originally planned to have this chapter be LONGER and not to end like this yet. at least have kept kurogane and madoka in the forest for like, another chapter at least. :sobs: Why god, WHY! TT uuuuugghhh...i'm DYYYYYIIIIINGG! seriously, i am hoping for a miracle and that the next few chapters will NOT be crap like this one. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh.

* * *

**EDITTED/ADDED**

_To Cardcaptor Soldier and other confused readers:_ Ehehehehe...sorry about that. I guess I wasn't really clear on several points.  
(1) **Imperious Curse's Effect on Naruto:**Alright, so why did the Kyubi try to come out while Naruto was NOT in a life or death situation NOR was the Kyubi all like you're "dead i'm coming out". Weeeell, Kyubi has been in Naruto for almost fifteen whole years. He's probably given up on trying to escape for a while. But when Mad-Eye Moody comes up and just 'IMPERIO's Naruto, Kyubi's pissed. Not only is the person in charge of the body (Naruto) not doing anything, he's letting someone ELSE take over. Not the Great Kyubi himself? Naruto should be HONORED that such an awesome, all-powerful fox is in HIS stomach, right? So while Naruto's head is empty except for "Do three flips. Do three flips. Do three...(etc)", then Kyubi is like, "Aw, hell no, if this isn't Naruto's body then this is MINE!"  
(2) **Naruto's temporary confusion**: Naruto learned a technique (not quite a jutsu) from Kurogane that requires a large amount of chakra. Like how the chakra in the Chidori is gathered into Kakashi's palm and forms what appears like a blue 'lightning blade', Naruto gathers chakra in both palms, places them a certain distance from one another, and between them forms a shield of chakra (usually red, considering he often resorts to the Kyubi's chakra). He can spread it thin and cover more area, or he can hold his palms close together and make it thicker, unless he (again) resorts to the Kyubi's chakra. This will block most physical attacks and minor spells and jutsus. However, with anything magical stronger than a Charm, most of the effects will come through. In other words, it's for physical attacks, not spells and jutsus. For instance, the Stunning Spell that Harry used stuns and knocks out the person's mind and renders the victim motionless until they are revived through _Ennervate_ or wake up by themself after some time.  
(3) **Madoka's Sight**: Basically, it's like gathering a lot of chakra as you would paint, and then you throw it everywhere around you. Everything the paint lands on, she can see. And if you still do not understand, relate it to...chakra-echolocation stuff. Like Kurogane's bat-ness. She spreads her chakra out onto the terrain, and then she Sees it.  
--Ohohoohoho! It's like Kadsuki/Kazuki Fuchoin/of the strings! Just read a manga called Getbackers. Thought it was a girl. But I saw the string stuff, and was like wooooooow... so I went around and found a small profile of him and stuff.  
_"As previously mentioned, Kazuki's fighting style is the Fuchoin Ryu. Using koto strings stored in the bells attached to his hair, he can weave many strands together to form a huge spider web, booby trap and entire room with strings, sew shut a persons eyes and mouth, and eavesdrop on a conversation with a single strand. Controlling the strings seems to require little physical contact, as they seem to move at Kazuki's will. This art is quite versitile and is not limited to just using strings, he can also change the sound of his voice and physical appearance, among other techniques, many of which can be found in several different scrolls."_ yadda yada yaada, basically, he uses the string too.  
Woooow. And, ironically, there's a blind violin girl named Madoka in there too. I was like WHOA! O.o That was so weird. Then again, I use the name Madoka everywhere...eh.  
(4) **Vulpes to Vikki?**: I'm sorry about the sudden change in name. I had originally meant for Vulpes/Vikki to change his name right at the beginning, but things are already moving fast enough. I mean, one month, and all of this? Hogwarts isn't THAT fast paced. Or maybe I'm just too slow... That's sad to think about, so let's think about something else!  
--a. **Why the change in name? **Well, when I first thought about it, Vulpes wasn't the coolest name and it DID sound like a Pokemon, as Shikamaru stated earlier. I liked Kitsune, but that's a name of a GIRL in Love Hina. Vulpes/Vikki might not have a gender, but I'm leaning for towards male. I think. And think about the chances of getting a pet and picking the EXACT name it responds to. For instance, my cousin and his wife's dogs had puppies. Once they were older, they gave one to us. We named him STITCH. His ORIGINAL name was NEMO. Get it? It didn't seem logical that Naruto would pick a name and that Vulpes/Vikki already had. So if you got confused and/or annoyed, I am very sorry. Anyway, I like the name Vikky. That and Bikky (a character from FAKE, some yaoi manga that...doesn't really have much of a point... -.- but I like the name).  
--b.**Now, why does Vikki talk!**: He/She/It doesn't really talk. It's more like a demon mind-to-mind thought speak. Vikki could probably talk to the Kyubi too, but the main point is that Naruto can hear Vikki because he has the fox demon god inside of him. I know, I know, stupid cliche. Naruto talks to a fox, blah blah blah blah blah... Sorry, I couldn't help it. Naruto doesn't naturally understand animals/foxes like how Kiba understands dogs. I have a thing for Kiba. I like him. He's funny, like a hairy brown Naruto. Anyway, the thing I like about him is his Jujin Bunshin (Beast Human Clone). I loooove that move! Or maybe it's because I'm a tree-hugging animal lover? (I love animals so much, I have my own fur coat! haha, j/k) ANYWAY, Naruto does have a tendency to rip off (that sounds mean)--I mean, imitating other people, like he did with the Uzumaki Naruto Rendan. So...this is just preparation for future...uh, stuff. I mean, Naruto is usually naturally/unnaturally dim when it comes to learning things at first. So...maybe he'll just use other means to past his tests.  
--c. **What's with Vikki's crappy people imitations?**: Vikki is the type of thing (can't say 'person') to imitate and mock people. I have no idea if Inner Sakura is a real 'personality' or if she's just Sakura thinking really loudly, so whether you want Vikki to be able to understand things like Inner Sakuras is your choice. Vikki is learning 'human', just like how he/she/it is learning other things. Oh, and I suppose Vikki is more like a cat than a fox, being stuck up and self-centered.  
--d. **Vikki's Body**: Technically, if he really tried, Vikky could probably change his shape. Why? Because it's not a real body. Oi, this is hard to explain. Okay, a _gigai_ is a body. That's all. When Vikky sleeps, it replenishes its energy (as a fox demon-let, it recovers rather quickly, but Vikki just likes sleeping). When exposed to certain things, Vikki will probably fade a bit or something, but not a lot. It's body is a LOT of chakra, all packed into some random shape. As a fox demon(let), Vikki has the natural body of a fox. And since Vikki is made of pure chakra and...essence of fox...it's a completely red fox. Why doesn't Vikki burn like Naruto's shield or cut like Kakashi's Chidori? Er...I don't know. Because it's more solid? Now that I think about it, I screwed up! O.o Sorry people, just pretend that Vikki's...er...special. Well, it IS a demon. Whatever.  
(5) **Who in the world is Nekomata?**: Nekomata is the cat demon lord, the Two - Tails with the power of death. No instant death. It controls the body of dead people. I saw this on some website and I THINK this is a real demon lord, but I can't be sure until I see it myself, yeah? Anyway, I know the legend about the two tailed cat, at least. People in Japan once believed that once a cat turned 10 years old, it would develop profound magical powers, typically exhibited by either a tail split halfway down of the tail splitting all the way down to form two tails (i think there's a purple or black Evee in pokemon that's like that or something). Hence the name "Two Tails" for the demon. By gesturing with its tail, Nekomata can animate and control the dead to do their bidding, or even dance to their amusement. Anyone familiar with cats knows their temperaments and distinct personalities, which made it all more convincing to anyone who had ever met a cat. As a result, many cats lost their tales due to superstition (poor cats!), and so many Asian breeds of cats have developed with short tails or even none at all (or so it is said). Nekomata can also do other magic, but their most well-known and common power is that of animated the dead and manipulating them to do whatever the particular Nekomata wishes. This can be particularly traumatic if a nekomata, slighted by a family, decides to animate deceased members of that family to taunt them. A nekomata must be appearsed by attention, food, and respect, and while many are fickled and turn their attention at a moment's notice, they do not tend to forget when they are insulted and by whom. While I am editting my other fiction, Nekomata is/will be the demon that hosts Kasumi Haruka.  
(a reader showed me the original website I got this from Hecate-19! Thank you! I was trying to find that website again when I lost it! I also got some of the other demon lords from some forum (like Isonade, Hachimata, Kaku, and stuff. When I find the forum, I will post it.)  
(6) **The Relationship between the Wizards and the Shinobi**: The shinobi and the wizards have not encountered each other in several centuries. To the wizards, the shinobi are just a legend. More like a superstition that nobody believes. There are certain missing-nins who have developed the technique to move between 'worlds', but those rumors remain unconfirmed. There will later come a device one both ends (shinobi world and wizard world) so they could travel to both sides. It's shaped like an arch.  
(7) **Gaara's Personality Switches**: I have noticed that when I write, Gaara tends to act angry at one moment, then really sarcastic another moment, and then almost nice another. (If you hadn't seen it, then it hadn't happened yet. YET. this is just for future reference) Anyway, when a person dies, their brain cells almost immediately start to die. When they die, they don't come back. Simple enough? That is why when some people die, they just can't come back, because the brain doesn't remember to control the heart, use the lungs, or move the body. Or, sometimes, they just lose parts of their memory. It's not that Gaara forgot that he was inspired by Naruto and that he resolved to become a better person whom others would need. He remembers that quite clearly. He just doesn't _feel_ it. Like, when you tell yourself, "You're getting fat! No more sweets!" You follow that rule for a while. And more often than not, after a week, you're back on your sugar diet. You remember that you told yourself not to eat it. You remember why. But all sense of determination and resolve has dissipated as you gorge on sweets. Yuuum. I've got that problem myself... But back to Gaara. He remembers how he admired Naruto and all that. He remembers talking to Kankurou on how he wants to be a bit more like Naruto. He also remembers that he ought to do his best not to kill people on sight. He has no real reason to, but he's holding back because he doesn't want to go back on his word, no matter how much he regrets it and wants to crush Malfoy and company with his Sand.  
--Note: if this "(brain - oxygen) loss of memory loss of life loss of other stuff" is inaccurate...sorry. I wasn't listening in class.  
(8) **All that Political Junk**:  
Allies: Konohagakure, Sunagakure, Mist (w/Konoha, too busy fighting themself), Waterfall (w/Sunaga, too weak to do much anyway), Rain (dealing with Haruka's escape), Cloud (dealing with Akatsuki attack and kidnapped demon kid Kisho) New ally: wizards/Dumbledore  
Sound/Enemies: Sound, Rock (I don't know anything about the rock...) Possible new ally: wizards/Voldemort ---------------------- Akatsuki  
(9) **To the Sound and Back**: Yeah, yeah we all know Sasuke is a traitor. Whoop-de-doo. So here's the story: Sasuke and Naruto fight. Sasuke beat Naruto and left to the Sound. Naruto leaves Konoha with Jiraiya and comes back two years later. Everyone has changed. Sakura and Hinata are abnormally strong and know various healing techniques. Neji is all noble and all to Hinata and is WAAAAY overprotective of her and Tenten. He also has more facial expressions. Tenten is a more important character now. She has a speaking role, unlike in Kishimoto's. She and Temari are closer friends (uh...I guess I haven't really been emphasizing that much, but...yeah). Gaara is stuck somewhere between bloodthirsty killer and redeeming nice guy (wow, it's kenshin!) Blah blah blah. The deal is, eveyrone changed a bit. Then Gaara was kidnapped and Naruto, Kakashi, Sakura, and other people went after him (er...almost all the younger shinobi at Hogwarts). Gaara died, came back half-killer, but then they encountered a strange group of people. Orochimaru, Kabuto, and, of course, Sasuke. There was also another group who came. Sasuke was not yet told who they were exactly and what Orochimaru's great big plan was (I'm not telling you guys either!) But things happened, and there was a three-way attack between the Leaf + Sand, the Sound, and Akatsuki. The Sound was first to retreat. After that, Konoha (and Gaara and the old lady Chiyo (not sure if she's still alive...)) started losing a bit, so they began to retreat too. Sasuke was kinda ditched by the Sound. He went crazy when he saw Itachi and refused to leave. So Konoha pretty much dragged him back home. Things are awkward.  
(10) **Security at Hogwarts**: Okay, so the Triwizard tournament thing is coming. Right. But if the security is heightened and they aurors and wizards "guarding" the place, do they know what exactly to look for? Dun-dun-DUN suspenceful music. Okay, so I'm not sure how exactly the Sound will get to Hogwarts so...yeah... -.-.  
--The Akatsuki may make an appearance, taunt Sasuke, and leave, but that is all they will probably do. No mass killings yet. That'll be...later.  
(12)**Sound's Seal**: Alright, now THIS is hard to explain... Okay, think Neji's Cursed Seal, only more options that could happen to the person it is on. Either (a) quick death, (b) Crucio-Avada Kedavra mix death, and a (3) pull-out-the-soul-and-stick-it-somewhere-not-safe death.  
(a) more for keeping a person from blabbin secrets. If someone is captured and is about to tell things that shouldn't be told, like weaknesses, plans, and other stuff.  
(b) punishments. You're really pissed off that the person and just want them to die, but not quickly. The time it takes to die depends on the person's durability.  
(c) what already happened to Madoka. It's like how Orochimaru got his arms screwed up.  
-Then, there is more of an obedience thing. Like Imperio. You just have to do what the person says.  
Madoka has two seals. Both Kurogane and Orochimaru can activate them. Kurogane is also sealed. Only Orochimaru and activate them.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Encounter With Snuffles and Naruto's Newest Mission

Pairings: Naruto X Hinata, Shikamaru X Temari, Neji X Tenten, Kakashi X Kurenai, Hermione X Ron, Harry X Ginny, Gaara X Sakura, Draco X Pansy, Sasuke X Ino, and possibly more to come.

* * *

Out in the corridors as Harry Ron and Hermione followed Naruto out to the Forbidden Forest, Neji, Tenten, Sakura, and Shikamaru were sneaking around. According to information Shikamaru received from Shino through his bugs, there was a lot of research to do tonight.

But teachers were everywhere that very night. It was difficult to do so, but they managed to go around without being spotted.

"Neji, you see anyone?" Shikamaru said.

They were planning on meeting in the library with Gryffindor's Hinata, Lee, Kiba, Chouji, and Ino, and Slytherin's Gaara, Temari, and Kankurou.

Neji searched the floor for any teacher who may see them. "No. Wait, I think I see someone. It's not clear. Near the dungeons."

Shikamaru sighed. Troublesome... It was probably a ghost. Neji's eyesight was so good... that he couldn't even see them.

"Avoid the dungeons. We'll have to take a detour," Shikamaru said. "Sakura."

She presented him with a hand drawn map of almost the entire castle. "We'll go to the right hallway," he said. "Come on."

"I see Griffins and Snakes," Neji said. "We're almost at the library." Stupid names, really, but it was easier than saying _everybody's _names at least.

"Oi, you guys are late," Kiba said. "The meeting's started without you."

"Where's Naruto?" Sakura asked.

"We couldn't find him," Sasuke said.

"Ano…" Hinata said. "N-Naruto is tired anyway, and I think he needs a break."

"Tired?" Sakura asked. "From what?"

"Ano…I don't know. But his chakra has been acting strange and he's sleeping a lot more than usual."

"Whatever," Chouji said. "Yesterday in the Kakashi's Care for Magical Creatures class, Naruto, Hinata, and I asked him about making a new club."

"What kind?" Temari asked.

"Teaching jutsus," Hinata answered.

"Are you crazy?" Kiba moaned. "The jutsus give us an advantage over them!"

"B-b-but teaching them would be so much m-more useful," she said.

"I like this idea," Sakura said. "Headmaster Dumbledore wants us to protect the subject, right? Helping other students learn certain jutsus—just for self-defense—would be a good idea, right?"

"Just self-defense," Neji affirmed. "Normally, it is illegal to teach anyone other than a ninja in the Five Countries new jutsus. And even then, we are not allowed to share our techniques with outsiders of our own village."

"If we convince Kakashi just to teach certain things… Wizards here are just plain…" Ino paused, avoiding the word fat around Chouji. "Out of shape. Some are too overweight, having long since given up on a healthy life. Some are too skinny, trying to avoid eating to become overweight in the first place. And everyone is just plain weak."

"We will teach them taijutsu!" Lee said.

"Alright!" Tenten said, banging her hand on a book. "We teach them to fight!"

"Sh…" Sakura said. "We're in the library. And we're not supposed to be in here. And with you shouting, we're going to get caught."

"Haha, oops," Tenten said quietly. "Sorry."

"Hold on," Shikamaru said.

"What?"

"I don't think it would be a good idea to go around teaching just any students," he said. "If you hadn't noticed, teaching a many certain individuals would cause endangerment to our subject. Many—or rather, _all_—Slytherins share a common dislike for Potter—"

"Call him 'the subject'," Kiba hissed. The subject sounded so much cooler!

Nah, too troublesome. Shikamaru ignored him. "—Therefore, it would be hazardous to teach many of them our techniques, even if it is only basic taijutsu and maybe a few genjutsu."

"Okay then, no club for us," Kiba said. "Any suggestions anyone?"

"Big brother/sister training," Gaara said.

"What's that?" Ino asked.

"It's a system of teaching in the Sand that we tested out once Gaara became Kazekage," Temari explained. "Each chuunin level shinobi and up get to choose an apprentice who will follow him or her around on missions and learn their techniques and other things. It's like an internship."

"Well, it doesn't sound too bad," Chouji said, munching on some chips.

"I'll ask Kakashi about it," Shikamaru said. He and Sakura had Care for Magical Creatures first class the next day. "_But_ choose _only _Gryffindors, and maybe Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. _No _Slytherins. At all. Everyone knows that they'll probably try to kill Potter the moment they get a chance to. And make sure they are his friends. Try keep it around his year, but it doesn't have to be. For now, is there any notable candidates who are probably in serious need of training? From what it sounds like, we'll be forming some kind of student militia."

"Harry Potter is a definite," Chouji said.

"Don't forget his friends too," Ino added. "That Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger."

"And George, Fred, and Ginny," Kiba said. "Teaching them our techniques. Now _that_ would be interesting."

"And really hazardous too," Sakura said. "Don't go giving them any tags. They'll completely destroy the school."

"Sarea Moon?" Ino asked.

"Who's that?" Neji asked.

"Some girl. From America. And she's…probably not the best candidate for any training," Shikamaru said.

"I heard about her," Temari said. "I think she'd be pretty useful. She's resourceful and…hands on."

"Obviously," Sakura retorted. "She invented some potion that blows up with just five drops and a small incantation!"

"She's in Ravenclaw," Tenten said. "At least she's not stupid."

"Fine. Sarea too."

"Anyone else?"

"I don't know, the Patil sisters?"

"Maybe…"

"Loony—Luna Lovegood," Tenten said. "She's all airheaded, but she catches on to things pretty quick. And as hard as it is to believe, she's real smart."

"Hm…Neville Longbottom," Chouji said.

"Why him?"

"Because he's useless," Chouji said. "He could help."

"Fine," Shikamaru said. He understood Chouji's logic, at least, even if nobody else did. Neville was generally clumsy, scared, and good for nothing at all. No one would expect him to do anything useful.

"Next, what's going on right now?" Kiba asked. "The teachers are all out in the hallways scrubbing and cleaning. I got yelled at because Akamaru went on a suit of armor. And not only that, but the suit tried to kick us!"

Shikamaru sighed. "You're about as stupid as Naruto—"

"I prefer to think of it as 'as smart as Naruto'," Kiba replied. It was true. The guy could be pretty smart sometimes.

"The Triwizard Tournament is coming up. Two other schools are arriving soon. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang," Shikamaru said. "They'll be coming in a few days, so we're just cleaning up."

"During classes?" Kiba asked hopefully.

"Nearing the end," Shikamaru said.

"Dang."

"Next…" Shino said, barely audible even in the silence of the empty library.

"Yeah," Sasuke said. "October 10 is coming up soon."

"What's that?" Temari asked.

"The death of the Kyuubi," Shikamaru said, remembering that holiday. It was a great, national holiday in which Konoha held a large, village-wide festival celebrating the fall of the fox demon lord. Last year, the whole group (not including Naruto, who was still training outside of Konoha with Jiraiya, and Sasuke, who was currently EVIL at the time). But now that Shikamaru thought about it, Naruto never went to the festival. Or at least, if he did, Shikamaru had never seen him.

"Ano...it's also..." Hinata began, although her voice faded off and she stopped talking. Shino raised a brow, although you couldn't really see it under the dark sunglasses. Everyone thought it was crazy, wearing sunglasses when you couldn't see anything in the library except for the lamp Lee had brought in which was sitting on the table as they discussed their issues.

"Ah..." They stared at her, waiting for her to finish her sentences. "Perhaps we could asked Dumbledore to borrow the Great Hall at night once everyone is gone," she said. "Or maybe a classroom. Then we can celebrate."

"That's a great idea, Hinata!" Kiba said. Akamaru barked.

"Shh..." everyone said, looking around.

"Maybe we could wear out dress robes?" Ino said. "We don't have our kimonos."

"We can send for them, can't we?" Sakura asked.

"Owls," Shikamaru said.

"Huh?"

"They use owls to bring things back and forth."

"You think an _owl_ can go all the way to the Five Countries and back?" Kankurou asked incredulously.

"Wizards have ways of doing things," Shikamaru said with a shrug.

"That's true," Neji said. "People here are different. The animals are too. Like Naruto's fox. It has chakra. More than the usual amount of chakra that all normal living beings have. It could be a _ninja_."

"Are you serious?" Tenten asked.

"No, not really," he replied. "We'll asked Dumbledore and Kakashi about it later."

"We won't really need the owls anyway, would we?" Temari asked Shikamaru. "I mean, you, me, Gaara, and Naruto are going to the Sand for the chuunin exams."

"I'm going to," Sakura said. "Tsunade sent for me recently. Since we are leaving, there are others coming to take our place, but not as students, I think.

"I think something's happening on the tenth, though," Sasuke said. Everyone looked at him. He hadn't said anything for a while. "The candidates for the Triwizard Tournament are going to be chosen. There might not be time for the festival. There will be a feast at dinner on the ninth _and _the tenth."

"We'll figure something out," Shikamaru said lazily.

"What else?" Sakura said.

"Small note," Chouji said. "Don't give the Weasley twins anything dangerous. They've been working on something explosive."

"I know!" Tenten said excitedly. "I mean...yeah, that's dangerous. No explosion tags for them!"

Neji almost laughed. Yeah, they had been... wandering in the hallways together when they heard the great explosion. "Right. They're destructive enough _without_ explosion tags."

"Naruto," Gaara said.

"What about him?" Chouji asked.

"Hinata _said _something's wrong with him," he said. Neji nodded. "Hinata said his chakra is all strange."

"Yes," she said. "At some times, it's all weak and almost nonexistent. And then, all of a sudden, it'll flare up and all go to his stomach. Not only that, but it's red and fiery like the time Naruto-kun and Neji-kun fought."

"Yeah, and every night, he leaves in the middle of work and just…leaves. No idea where he goes though…" Kiba said.

"Sometimes he leaves during dinner," Chouji added.

"Be quiet," Shikamaru said. "For a minute, just be quiet."

They did so, watching as he closed his eyes, frowned a little more, and put his hands together. Like he always did when he was _really_ thinking. Like during the chuunin exams when he fought Temari.

Hm…Naruto's sick. His chakra's out of order. He's practically bursting with energy at some times, and completely depleted at others. His chakra's red—a sign of not-so-human chakra. This might have been the effect of the jutsu he had been hit with. Or result of Neville's potion, which he had drank during Professor Snape's Potion class as a joke to be funny (or out of mere stupidity).

"Alright, so Naruto has an illness," Shikamaru said slowly. "We know that it is either the cause of the jutsu that hit him when we were fighting the Akatsuki or the Neville's potion that he had drank in Potion's class with Professor Snape. But since we also know that he's been training, he's probably just been going on all night without sleep or dinner. It's as simple as that. We all know how Naruto intends to overdo it on missions in a group. So he's training by himself without any supervision."

"..." Everyone stared at him.

"Is that all?" Temari asked. Shikamaru nodded.

"That wasn't any use to us, you fool!" she cried, putting him in a headlock. They already knew THAT! But why was Naruto training so hard when he'd be a shoo-in in the chuunin exams? He had beaten everybody who was stronger than him, and he was worrying about a few kids almost three years younger than him with so much less experience? Shikamaru sighed.

"How—"

"Don't you 'troublesome woman' me, Shika-kun!"

"Hey!" a voice said. "Is someone in there?"

"_Run_!"

"Shit!" Kiba replied. And they all scattered. Sakura knocked out the unfortunate stranger and they all retreated back to their Houses.

* * *

Harry woke up yawning after a night of an interrogation from Ron and Hermione. They hadn't been very pleased when Harry wouldn't tell them anything, but they finally relented once Harry assured them that Naruto really wasn't yet another dark lord trying to take over the world. Merlin knows, they've been having enough of those already... Nevertheless, his friends remained wary of Naruto as he slowly trudged to the Great Hall, only regaining his jumpy, happy-go-lucky attitude once he was in public.

"Hinata! You woke up without me!" Naruto said, practically jumping on her. Then, he quickly withdrew himself, releasing his loving hug. Naruto's fox tugged on his arm. Naruto felt a certain overprotective cousin glaring at him from across the room... Ugh. To think that she practically had two fathers, both willing to murder him the moment he started looking at another girl. Why didn't they like him looking at girls? Naruto gasped. Were they JEALOUS? Aaaaaah!

Wait, as hard as it was to believe, Neji wasn't homosexual. He was going out with TENTEN! Naruto laughed loudly. The fox looked like he would have raised an eyebrow if he had one. Other people were staring at him too, while he was busy panicking over the thought of angry Hyuga jounins and then laughing it off. The idiot. Hinata returned to the common room, as she always did, to help Kiba with his cramming. A lost cause. Naruto pouted when she left. He ought to catch up on his own work too.

"Hey, Naruto!" Temari said, running over to the Gryffindor table with a Shikamaru in tow. The Gryffindors, seeing a flash of green and silver on dark robes, turned their heads to scowl at the Slytherin until they realized it was just Temari. "We had a top secret meeting last night!" she shouted, running over to them. "Whatever you're doing, take a break from it."

Naruto shrugged. "Well what a coincidence," Naruto said. "I'm not doing what I've been doing anymore."

"Nuh-uh, I'm not taking no for an ans—oh, wait..." Temari paused, realizing that the speech she prepared was useless from this point on. Shikamaru sighed.

"Good," Shikamaru said. "You can catch up on more of your sleep in Binns' class while you can. Do you have your work?"

"...Noooo," Naruto said. Shikamaru made a face, although he knew that Naruto hadn't been making any reports on the current events around Hogwarts. It didn't really matter anyway. The only ones actually sticking with the job was he, Sakura, Hinata, Gaara, Neji, and Tenten. Everyone else was having fun playing with spells.

"Mendokusei... Here." He handed Naruto several sheets of papers.

"Wha's this?" Naruto said, slurring his words with his mouth crammed full of food.

"Work. Hinata says you haven't been doing enough work so we all pitched in. Ino's got your Herbology notes. Hinata's gotten your Divination. Kankurou's done your Potions."

"Kankurou?"

"He has an affinity for any poison with enough potential to become an addition to his puppet hobbies," Gaara said. Aaaah! There he goes, coming up out of nowhere AGAIN! Naruto, Shikamaru, and several Gryffindors sitting nearby at the table jumped at his voice. Temari was used to his tendency to go unnoticed until he spoke (1), but others found it freakishly scary.

"Whoa, Gaara!" Naruto said, jumping up.

"No showing off," Temari said to him. "It's bad for your head."

"Oh, hey, it's Gaara, the Slytherin Slytherin-slayer!" George said. He would have probably hit Gaara on the back, but Gaara glared at him. He put his hands down. News of how he nearly obliterated Malfoy and his stooges had spread throughout the school, although no one was quite sure how he managed to do it. Insane rumors were flying about the school. One such being how he had a monster hidden in his body that would take control if he slept, and another even saying that he controlled sand without the use of a wand. He might have had something against Slytherins, but wandless magic was rumored to be dark magic.

"What do you want?"

"Uh...just saying hi?"

"Oh, hey, do you have the stuff?" Naruto asked.

"Not yet, kid," Fred said with a grin. "You want our masterpiece, you gotta wait. We'll finish it three weeks tops. We've never experimented with anything quite like this."

"What stuff?" Temari asked them.

"Ah... I gave Fred and George a few samples of..."

"Of what?" Shikamaru asked, feeling a sudden sense of profound trepidation.

"Er, explosion tags..."

"WHAT!"

Shikamaru and Temari's horrified cries were heard throughout the entire school.

* * *

Naruto left the infirmary later that day looking cross. It was too troublesome for Shikamaru to hit Naruto, and Temari never hit anyone so hard that they'd be knocked out. None of the shinobi anyway. But when she took out her fan and hit it across his head (a reaction to her horror), he tried to jump out of the way and landed on Temari's...on Temari. First Temari hit him, and then Shikamaru's shadow tried to strangle him! And not only that, but when Naruto tried to run away, he tripped and set off his own smoke bomb, throwing all of the Great Hall into chaos. Blinded by smoke, Naruto ran into the wall and knocked himself unconscious. Thus he was sent to the infirmary.

It was actually luck that Naruto's smoke bomb went off. At least, then, no one remembered the shadow reaching out for Naruto. No one mentioned it anyway. Madam Pomfrey frowned at his lack of sleep and wanted him to get at least a little sleep, and he wasn't going to complain. If he stayed in there all day long sleeping, then he could skip Divination. Ever since that Trelawney quack had made the mistake between Harry and Naruto, she had been doing the best she could to kill them both with her crazy predictions. Not only that, but this was the perfect chance to have an excuse not to do any homework!

Unfortunately, Kiba had convinced Hinata that Naruto could do his work while he was in the infirmary, so Naruto was forced to spend the day making deadly predictions about his future demise. Leaving the infirmary, he met Hinata waiting outside. His glare became a big grin as he hugged her.

"Hiiii Hinaaata-chaaaaan!" he said. "Aw, you waited outside just for me? How sweeeeet!"

"N-Naruto...?" This...wasn't like him. And here at Hogwarts, they rarely ever used honorifics.

"I _like_ you, Hinata-chan," he said with a slurred voice. Oh god, was Naruto drunk?

"Hey, you!" Kiba said angrily, holding Vikki and Akamaru by the scruff of the neck. "You left your fox with me an' Akamaru! Do you have any idea what kind of trouble they caused together! I had to hide Ms. Norris in a suit of armor! When Filch finds her, he's gonna be furious! They _jumped_ her for god's sake! Your fox is a bad influence on my Akamaru!" Vikki stuck it's tongue out at Kiba.

Naruto grinned. "Ah-righ' Vikki, gum on..."

Kiba dropped Vikki, who tilted it's head in confusion by Naruto's lightheadedness. It bit his arm. "Oooooow! Wha' was that for, dupid socks?" Naruto said.

"Naruto, are you alright?" Kiba asked.

"Yeeeaaah, I'm fiiiiiine!" Naruto said. "In fact, I'm bloody GREAT. Ma'am Pomfrey gave me some keep-awake potion. Tol' me t' drink a spoonful o' it, but a teeny tiny voice in my head said ta drink the 'ole thing so drink the 'ole thing I did! And then the fox gave up tryin' ter talk ta me!"

Leave! The scarred professor is coming!

"Alrigh' Vikki," Naruto said. "'Ey, Kiiiiiba, Hiiiina-chaaan, Vikki says I gotta go! Bye-byyyyeee!" Naruto began chasing after Vikki at full speed as they sped down the hall.

"N-Naruto...come back!" Hinata said.

"Stupid, what are you doing?" Kiba cried. They weren't supposed to use their chakra to aide them in their running in public. Anyone down the hallway could see them!

They were running for a short amount of time when Vikki ran into a cold wooden peg of a leg. Naruto, who was running right behind it, tripped over the wooden leg and rolled almost twenty feet.

"No running in the hallways, Mr. Uzumaki," Professor Moody growled. "But you're just the person I wanted to see."

"How funny," Naruto said. "You're jus' the person I _din't_ wanna see."

"Now, now, Naruto, you're…funny in the head. Step into my office."

"I dun' wanna…" Naruto moaned, although he didn't struggle against Moody's grasp and let him pull him into the office.

Naruto you idiot! Weeks of avoiding this guy wasted because you're bloody drunk! Vikki growled, biting Naruto's leg.

"Now, Mr. Uzumaki, I'd like to discuss the lesson in which I cast the Imperius curse on you."

"Wha' abou' it?"

"Tell me, what was that voice in your head? The one that took control over you."

Don't say a thing, boy!

"Ah...Vikki says no telling..."

That's almost worse than speaking of the Kyuubi!

Then again, Moody frowned at Naruto's comment, obviously not believing him. "Boy, this is important. Tell me about that fox."

"Kyuubi? It's a nine tailed _thing_. He's in my belly! Bu' I din't eat 'im though. The Fourth stuck him in me…" Naruto said.

Stupid! Stupid stupid stupid!

"Ninetails…" Moody said pensively. "Ah, I understand. Now, what about you and your friends? They are not from this school, right? Tell me more about yourselves."

Don't!

"Ah…we're on a mission." Something was strange. Naruto's had wasn't pleasantly bubbly anymore. Things were starting to make sense as Naruto was giving away information that shouldn't be told.

"A mission?"

"Yeah," Naruto frowned. Okay. Whatever he had drank, it had completely worn off. "_I'M GONNA BE THE HOKAGE OF KONOHA!_"

Vikki and Moody seemed stunned by this.

Finally, you idiot! 

"You are on a mission to become a hokage? What is that?"

Naruto smiled stupidly, acting as bubbly as ever. "The 'okage is th' leader o' the Fire Country. My mission is ta be th' 'okage so tha' everyone in Kono'a can' ignore me 'nemore. Tha' is my greatest mission!" Perfect acting! 10.0!

Naruto frowned. "Oh no, thiz the time I look at the stars and see quack's predishions!" he exclaimed, running out of Moody's office as fast as he could before Moody could say anything.

What in the hells is wrong with you! Vikki cried as they ran out.

"Sorry, Vikki," Naruto said, laughing nervously. "Ehehe, it must have been something I ate."

Or, perhaps, something you drank.

"What did I drink?"

A truth serum, perhaps? I doubt it was Veritaserum, with your drunken demeanor and your quick recovery, but you were not acting under your own influence. I don't trust that one-legged man.

"I know, I know," Naruto said. "I don't either. But he's a professor, so he's gotta be good right?"

Whatever, Vikki scoffed.

"Poppycock," Naruto muttered at the frame of the Fat Lady's picture. The portait flung open, nearly knocking Naruto over had he not jumped back in time.

"Hi Naruto!" Ino shouted at a table, standing up and waving wildly at him. "Over here! Sit!"

"I feel like a dog," Naruto said walking over to her and the others at the table. Chouji offered him a bag of chips, but Naruto shook his head.

"So you over your moment of maniacal hysteria?" Kiba asked.

"Naruto, it is not good to keep all of your pent-up youth inside! Do not be afraid to show the FLAME OF YOUR YOUTH! It's unhealthy to keep things to yourself, like—"

"It's like constipation," Ino said, cutting Lee off and shortening his fiery-youth speech. "Anyway, have you been training recently? Because we _can_ help you know."

"M-m-me an-and…I-Ino and…Kiba…Ino, Kiba, and I have been working on adrenaline potions if you want," Hinata said, putting her two fingers together again.

"No need!" Naruto said with a grin. "I'm all ready to go!"

"We've still got a week until the chuunin exams start," Chouji said.

"Yeah, and I'm going to sleep aaaaaall week."

"Sorry to burst your bubble, Naruto," Ino said, "but you still have to catch up on your school work."

Naruto hung his head low and pretended to cry dramatically. Kiba nudged Hinata.

"Don't worry, Naruto," she said, patting him on his back. "We'll help."

"You'll do my work for me then?" Naruto asked her. Kiba shook his head rapidly behind Naruto.

"S-s-sorry, I won't….But I _can_ help you with it…"

Ino flashed a big grin and Lee gave her a thumbs-up sign.

"_Now_," Ino said, "that Naruto has all the help he needs, we've got a mission for you when you get to the Sand." Kiba coughed.

"It's the most important mission for you yet, Naruto, and if you screw this up…well, Tsunade won't do anything, but I'll beat you senseless!"

Naruto whimpered.

"You, Gaara, Temari, Shikamaru, and Sakura are going to the Sand for the Chuunin Exams. In the desert, these are especially rare. I know, your first priority is to become a chuunin, but it is _imperative_ that you do this. Here are pictures of _all_ of us," Ino said, handing Naruto a handful of those wonderful moving photos. "Now, this mission is not a solo mission. We have seen what you do by yourself. We don't like it. Orange. Whatever. So you may find it useful to enlist Sakura's help, as—although she is not as skill as I am—she will suffice."

"Just what is the mission already?" Naruto asked impatiently.

Ino frowned. "We want you to find suitable kimono for the ten of us who are not going to the Sand."

Naruto stared. This was the important mission? And…

"You want me to find a kimono that _Lee_ will look _good_ in!"

"You're singling me out, Naruto…"

"Oh come on, it's not that hard. But if you give me an orange kimono, I will murder you in your sleep."

"Very encouraging, Ino," Chouji said.

"Thank you, I try," Ino said pleasantly to him. "And I know, Lee's going to be hard—"

"You guys are so mean…"

"—but I'll fix him a little bit."

…………

The room was silent. Even the normal Gryffindors didn't say anything as they heard Ino say this.

"What?" Lee asked.

"Deal!" Naruto said enthusiastically.

"What?"

"Wow," Kiba said. "I wanna see this."

"What?"

"This might be interesting," Chouji said, feeling remotely sorry for Lee.

"What?"

"Ano…I don't think Lee is very enthusiastic about this…"

"What?"

Lee couldn't understand what was going on. Fix him? Was he broken? He had a bad feeling about this… (2)

* * *

**A week later**

Harry woke up, rubbing his eyes, to the sound of whispering voices in the common room. It was six in the morning, and people rarely woke up so early in the morning at Hogwarts. He frowned to look and see who were whispering so loudly in the common room and peeked through the door while Ron, Dean, and Seamus were still snoring loudly.

It was those 'mercenaries' who didn't really look like mercenaries. Especially the overweight Chouji and Lee with his bowlcut and caterpillar eyebrows. Harry still found it hard to believe that these kids were mercenaries.

"I bet you you're going to screw up, dork," Kiba said with a sneer.

"I beat you and you're a chuunin. I could beat these little kids! They're genin, for Kage's sake!" Naruto said, bearing what seemed to be a 'man-bag' with his fox inside.

"Technically, so are you," Ino said. "But don't lose."

"Lucky chips," Chouji said, handing Naruto an unopened bag. How many bags of chips did this guy have?

"Gee, thanks," Naruto said. Lucky or not, he'd end up eating it anyway.

"Naruto, I have spent the entire week sewing this!" Lee said proudly, giving Naruto an orange spandex, much like his own green one. "Wear it to show the flame of your youth and to become more powerful than ever!"

"Thanks," Naruto said through gritted teeth as everyone else in the room laughed at him. "I'll wear it for the exams," he lied.

Harry saw Kiba give Hinata a small push towards Naruto. She blushed and gave him a small… spray can.

"What's this?" Naruto asked.

"I-I r-r-remembered during the Ch-chuunin Exam t-two years ago, you used my ointment, but i-it took a while to get it everywhere so you o-only got the cuts and n-not s-s-scrapes and b-bruises… s-so I-I-I looked a-at a m-muggle 'can' and it sprays on if y-you aim it at the wound. I-I put healing ointments inside… and it works on cuts, bruises, and scrapes. J-just don't get it in y-your eyes and don't h-heat it u-up…" Hinata stuttered.

"Thanks Hinata," Naruto said gratefully, taking the spray can. There was an awkward silence. Kiba and Ino grinned and pushed Naruto and Hinata together. Finally! A hug! Naruto blushed like Hinata and Hinata fainted like Sakura when she saw Sasuke's 'severed' head from the bell test.

The fireplace went green and Naruto, still blushing, ran into the fireplace with his bag. Kiba caught Hinata's body and nearly collapsed himself, laughing himself until he was breathless.

"Hinata's so shy, it's cute," Ino said, giggling.

"Naruto's so clueless, it's pathetic," Kiba said, panting.

"Things even out," Chouji said.

* * *

Gaara had finished his own packing earlier that night. Later, he had to start and finish Temari's packing too, which was quite a challenge, as he was not, he realized, allowed into the girl's dormitory. Luckily for him, no one had the nerve or the bravery to laugh at him in his face when he found out. So, with the help of his sand and his eye of sand, he packed Temari's things for her as she and Shikamaru went…spending time together. Gaara was in a horrible mood that morning. Luckily, no one was awake at four in the morning to suffer his wrath.

But now, two hours later, Gaara and Temari were standing in front of the fireplace with Kankurou, Sasuke, and Shino, waiting for it to turn green.

"By the way," Temari said. "Shika-kun and I were talking about the mission—" everyone in the room rolled their eyes "—and he said that Dumbledore said that we weren't 'mingling' enough with the Slytherins."

"So what?" Kankurou asked.

"We need a _proper_ information system, reaching all over the school. We are the only shinobi here who have not been 'accepted' into our house."

"Meaning…?"

"Kuro (3), you are just clueless, aren't you…? In other words, we need to get all buddy-buddy with the other Slytherins, not stick only to our own. A sacrifice. At least one of us is going to start sitting at their part of the table. Every day. And hang out with them. We need to start this as soon as possible. Gaara can't be friends with the Slytherins, since they're all scared senseless of him and if he snaps, they'll be first to go—" Yeah…a real loss there.

"I'm leaving too, so I can't go. Kankurou's on bad term with that Malfoy kid, so that's that. Shino doesn't talk and I'm sure all of the Slytherins would prefer a brick wall, as it could keep up a conversation better. And Sasuke seems to be gynephobic," Temari said.

"What's that?" Kankurou asked.

"It means I'm scared of women," Sasuke said. Wait... "I mean, I'm not! That's what Temari said, but I'm _not_!"

"Riiiiight," Kankurou said, laughing at Sasuke, who threatened to kill him as usual.

As if on cue, the fireplace went green, Gaara went inside, as stiff as usual, and Temari skipped into the fireplace.

"Okay then," Kankurou said as he, Shino, and Sasuke were left alone in the Common room. Kankurou and Malfoy mixed as well as oil and water after that make-up incident. Shino doesn't talk. So…that left Sasuke.

Shino looked at Sasuke, seemingly void of any expression from his thick sunglasses. Kankurou looked at Sasuke, as if he were trying his best not to laugh at him, and then the fanclub of girls at the doorway, just waking up. And Sasuke looked at them both, suddenly realizing what they may have been thinking. He went pale (pal_er_).

"Oh hell no. I swear, if you stick me in there—"

Kankurou practically threw Sasuke at the girls who were staring at him like they were going to eat him.

"—I'll fucking kill you!"

Now that Sasuke was out of the five meter radius of the creepy guy with the face paint and the weirdo with the overcoat, he was swept into the torrent of his freaky fangirls (and a few boys). He flicked Kankurou off, who waved in return.

"Good luck, young one," he said sagely.

"You ought to sleep with one eye open," Shino advised as Sasuke was swept out of the room. "He'll probably strangle you in your sleep."

"I doubt it," Kankurou said. "I'm laughing at him. He doesn't want that. He'll try to scare me and _then_ kill me."

"An entertaining thought to keep in your mind, I'm sure."

* * *

"Hi, Headmaster Dumbledore!" Naruto said cheerfully, with Vikki in his bag. "'Morning Gaara, Temari, Shikamaru...and Sakura? What are you doing here?"

"Tsunade-sama asked for me to come. All kages bring an assistant to the exams they attend. That's why Temari is here. And Shikamaru is an official judge."

"What about Shizune?"

"She's coming here, along with several other instructors. I don't know why. Tsunade didn't say, and Gaara's not telling why either."

Gaara shrugged. "Classified information."

"You're so mean, Gaara," Sakura said. Gaara frowned and looked away.

"Hey, Headmaster Dumbledore, what's that thing?" Naruto asked, pointing at a tall arch with a thin piece of cloth covering it.

"That," Dumbledore said, "is the device you are using to go to the Sand Village. Now, smuggling this Dark Device between here and it's resting place constantly would be a great hassle. So, the most responsible person…I am assuming it is Sakura here…will take these two necklaces. Keep one and give the second to your Hokage. It is a Portkey that will activate exactly three hours after the chuunin exams are over. I hope this will supply you with enough time to pack." Dumbledore handed Sakura two tacky necklaces, shaped like a pyramid.

"Now, after several experiments, I finally managed to have this machine send you directly to the Sand. Not yet though. It is currently coded for Konoha-to-Hogwarts right now. Give it several moments. In the Sand, there is a rune on the ground. Do _not_ smear the runes on either side. Tread carefully between the arches and carry these." Dumbledore handed them slips of parchment with a complicated rune on it.

"We have not looked into how it words exactly, but I do not wish to take the chance of sending you to unknown lands. Keep this with you going through the arches and coming back. Think of it as a muggle passport. We're not sure how it works exactly anyway."

……………

The room was completely silent until the runes on the ground began to glow brightly.

"Ah, look. Here come your teachers now," Dumbledore said pleasantly.

Ooh, bright colors!

Someone's sandaled foot emerged from the bright light that emitted from between the arches. Then the other foot came out. All of a sudden, all of Morino Ibiki's shockingly unpleasant face and body came out. Vikki let out a surprised yelp. Such a resemblance to Professor Moody!

"Whoa, Ibiki, what are you doing here?" Naruto asked.

"It's not your business, boy," Ibiki said, looking around Dumbledore's office warily and he stumbled forward a bit. Someone had walked in from behind him.

"Business is going slow in Konoha, so a few of us without any students went to help academy students train," a feminine voice said. It was Anko. "Tsunade-sama got mad and made him come here because he was scaring the little kids. Come on! Move forward, Ibiki! You're blocking the way!"

"Hey, quit pushing, I'm trying to walk without smearing the ink on the floor!"

"Lift your legs! Move it, move it!" Anko said. "Wait, Iruka, Gai, guys! Don't come through yet—"

After several short moments, seven people were standing in the archway. Dumbledore tapped the arch with his wand and they were able to leave the area covered by the runes. At the same time, the rune on the floor changed, a larger version of the one on Naruto's paper.

"Now, go through the translocation device one at a time," Dumbledore said.

"See ya, Asuma," Shikamaru said, lazily waving at his instructor as he went through the device with Temari right behind him.

"Seeya Shikamaru and Girlfriend."

"Keep Tsunade-sama safe," Shizune said to Sakura.

"I'll do my best to keep her from losing all her money too," Sakura assured her.

"GAARA, BEST OF LUCK ON YOUR JOURNEY! MAY YOU RECOVER YOUR LOST YOUTH AND RETURN A YOUTHFUL RIVAL FOR LEE TO CARE FOR!"

"...Right."

"Bye, Iruka-sensei!"

"See you later, Naruto! And good luck!"

"That, I have plenty," Naruto said as he, the last one, went through the arc.

* * *

The rest of the school noticed Naruto's disappearance almost immediately. Where were the smoke bombs he always accidentally set off during classes and meals? What happened to the chaos that always ensued? Something was amiss. But, Harry realized, Naruto wasn't the only one missing. Hermione's friend Sakura in Ravenclaw was gone, as was the 'Slytherin Slytherin-hater' and his sister were too. And then there was also Sakura's friend and Temari's boyfriend, Shikamaru, who was also gone. Where they in the Chuunin exams too?

Not only that, but there were new faces at the table with the professors. Only one was recognizable. In fact, it was frighteningly similar to…Rock Lee!

Half of the school, after meeting the smaller version, stared at Rock Lee's adult version. His eyebrows were bigger and scarier and threatened to collapse inward on his eyes. His bowlcut was exactly the same. His teeth 'ping'-ed even brighter than Lee's. And...above all—the thing everybody—feared the most: THE SPANDEX!

'OH MY GOD!' the entire school thought. 'THERE ARE _TWO _OF THEM!'

* * *

"Ah, Kurogane-sama," Madoka said. "Perhaps you should take a break from training?"

"I don't need to take a break right now, Madoka," Kurogane replied. "What I need is to get stronger."

"Okay," Madoka said. They had been in Hogsmeade for a while. Kurogane had been training almost nonstop on this godforsaken mountain. She knew that he wasn't training because he hadn't been able to fight as well that night they encountered that giant of a man and the two boys. Both were completely aware that it had only been a fluke that he had been unable to harm them. It had been his weakness after combat with Naruto. But why was Kurogane acting like this?

He only went training like mad then he was really angry. Maybe it had something to do with the sparkly blue man's misty chakra? Madoka wanted to ask, but Kurogane didn't seem to be in the mood to answer touchy questions right now.

But now, out of rage to run on, he seemed a bit more tired yet sensible. Madoka sighed.

"Sorry, Madoka," he said. "It's too dark to go right now and it seems to be getting colder. We'll stop to camp out, and then we will return to Hogsmeade tomorrow morning."

"Yes, Kurogane-sama," Madoka said.

"Stop calling me that," he said. "You sound like just some other slave."

"What would you prefer me to call you by then?" she asked.

"Kuro…gane. Or Kuro-kun, if you liked that one better."

"Okay, Kuro—" Kurogane or Kuro-kun? "—gane."

"There's a cave over there. I'll find food and make something to eat," he muttered.

Kurogane left. Madoka spread her chakra out. Just trees, an empty cave with bones scattered on the ground, and a river about thirty feet to her right. A nice place actually. The air was cold and dry. It would probably snow in a few days. Blind, she didn't really have anything to do.

Ever since she was given to Kurogane as a servant, he had been doing almost everything for her. At first, he was awkward with her. And then, they were friends, and they often trained together. He respected her despite her sightlessness, or perhaps because of it? They sparred on several occasions. Had it been a real fight, she would have lost miserably. But at least he didn't rub it in her face or anything. Kurogane was the one who suggested that she, instead of relying on her own sense of hearing which was dwarfed by his abilities, and instead learn to 'See' using her chakra, like tossing paint onto an object and seeing everything the pain fell on. He also taught her how to use a cord as a deadlier weapon, entangling, strangling, and cutting at an enemy. She even learned to make a barrier from it and to use the koto cord to search and help herself navigate around inside buildings.

She sighed. Kurogane always helped her, making sure she wasn't hurt, hungry, or tired. What was there that she could do to help? All she could do was keep him company.

Madoka rummaged through her bags and found several scrolls she had packed. Feeling along the edges, she found the right two that she had been looking for.

Rolling it out and using her chakra, she summoned their blankets. Yay! She found it right.

She was setting their things out for Kurogane when she heard something moving.

"Ku-Kurogane? Is that you…Kuro-kun?" She turned around, although it wouldn't really help since she couldn't see anyway. She used her chakra and found a large four legged creature.

"A-ano…" She released the cord in her hair. "P-please go away."

It made a noise. It sounded a bit confused.

She was low on chakra from Seeing so much. Just catch the thing and drop it off somewhere. From that string, many more erupted. A normal animal probably would have been ensnared by the sudden surge of cords, but this one…it easily dodge it and ran to the side.

"Shoot!" She stood up suddenly from her kneeling position on her knees. This thing wasn't normal! It was too quick—no, too smart.

"Alright, Puppy-san, I'm not letting you eat me!" Madoka said stubbornly. It grinned at her amusedly, although she couldn't really see it. Okay, so she barely had any chakra left. But there was still something that she could do…

"Kuro-kun!" she cried, running off in some random direction. "There'safurryfourleggedthingtryingtoeatmeandIthinkit'sawooooolf!"

The thing barked. Probably a wolf. It ran after her barking wildly. She heard something running next to her. She yiped and veered to the right and…

She fell in water. She jumped out gasping. Cold! And it was deep too! Craaaaap. She was out of chakra, there was a wolf after her, and she was getting dragged out of the water. Huh? She waved her arms around wildly and found herself grabbing the ear of the wolf that had chased after her. It towed her out of the water and onto the not-so-dry land. It barked and may have been wagging its tail.

"Are you laughing at me…?" Madoka wandered.

It barked, Yes. It was.

Madoka was further impressed by this dog when it half-led, half-dragged her back to the camp. Western animals were so much more intelligent than the ones in the east! At the cave, the dog went to chewing on the bones that littered the ground. Maybe it was living here before she and Kurogane arrived? She looked through her bags and found another scroll that she had brought along. Opening it up, a bundle of clothes, shampoo, conditioner, soap, towels, and other girl accesories fell out. She felt the dog watching her with interest.

"Oh, hehe, oops." She gathered most of her belongings and shoved it in a 'corner' of the cave, not really having the energy to put it back in there. She dried her hair with the towels and started changing the clothes. The dog yelped and left the cave. "Huh? A modest dog? How weird!"

"Madoka!" Kurogane ran into the cave, saw her and tried to turn around, spinning and stumbling.

"K-Kurogane!"

"Leaving!" he said, scrambling out of the cave. "Uh...sorry!"

The dog barked loudly as if he were laughing.

"I, uh...have clothes now..." she said blushing.

"...Okay. I...heard you calling about being attacked by a wolf, so I headed back..."

"Thanks?"

"Yeah. I have food now... So why is this '_dog_' that was chasing you...with you?"

"Um...I fell in the river."

"You _what?_! You shouldn't have been running around in the first place, Madoka!" Kurogane said. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? There are trees you could have ran into and then there's that river you fell in and it's cold and freezing and wet and you could have drowned or something because it's abnormally deep for a mountain river!"

"That's a run-on sentence," Madoka said, unable to think of anything else.

Kurogane sighed. "You're such a fool sometimes," he muttered. "I'll make food. I caught a deer. Or, I think it was a deer. It's hard to tell with all these magical creatures loose about the mountain. Just sleep or something. You don't have much of a chakra reserve in the first place, so you shouldn't go running around everywhere, it's dangerous."

Kurogane didn't say anything as he made a fire took out their 'pot scroll' and melted ice from the mountain. Madoka sat down glumly. She pet wolf/dog, feeling some childhood giddiness.

"I'm naming you Snuffles," she said with a grin, ruffling his fur. "You're name is Snuffles and you shall be MY Snuffles!" (4)

"You're _keeping_ him?" Kurogane asked.

"Why, is that a problem, Kuro-k-gane-sama?"

"No, but calling me Kurokoogane is," he said. She smiled. He was definitely grinning. "If I was allergic to animals, I never would have been able to train with that Naruto kid."

She laughed. She pawed around in her bags and found a cookie, offering it to the dog. Snuffles barked excitedly and jumped on her.

"H-hey!" Kurogane said. The dog ignored him and ate the cookie eagerly, but not before licking Madoka's face gratefully for the food. Kurogane was pissed, although Madoka didn't notice, let alone wonder why.

"Hey," Kurogane said. "There's something I want to see with that dog. Er, Snuffles. If he has fleas. Or ticks. Or rabies." Kurogane almost sounded hopeful. "Come on, Dog."

Surprisingly obedient, Snuffles got back on all fours and followed him. Once they were out of Madoka's earshot, which was rather far away, Kurogane frowned at the dog.

"Great," Kurogane said. "Now that Madoka isn't here, how about turning to your true form?" The dog tilted its head like Kurogane was crazy. "Don't go playing with me. You're not a dog." The dog tilted its head, looking confused. "Don't mess with me mutt. If you stick to that form, then we'll be eating some magical moose for dinner and some Snuffles for dessert." Was this guy serious! No, the dog was. (5)

It seemed to sigh. It was a man wearing ragged gray robes. His dark hair was long and untidy, slightly matted with dirt. He looked rather thin.

"You're a pretty smart guy," the man said. "Who are you?"

"It's proper manners to dictate your own name before asking another's. Who are _you_?" Kurogane answered in return.

"Wouldn't this be much easier if you just said Snuffles ran away and I just disappeared?" the man said tiredly.

"No. I want to know who you are, what you are, why you're here, where you came from, and what you were doing."

"You're a really demanding guy, you know that?" the man said. "I can't tell you my name, but I'm the godfather to a kid at the nearby school. Something's come up, and I want to go meet him, but I can't get caught by anyone, okay?"

"Why not?"

"Apparently not okay then. But I can't tell you until you tell me what you two are doing here."

"I was meeting a kid but got kicked out of a nearby school for…property damage, and so now I'm training. And I can't tell you my name either."

"…Oh?" He looked confused.

"Look, are you going to kill someone or not? Because if you are, and you do anything to hurt Madoka, it's your fur that I'll be wearing in the winter."

"Killing is against the law!" the man said indignantly. "Of course, authorities think I did. But I was _framed,_ you see? They say I killed thirteen people with one curse and I didn't! You believe me right?"

"Definitely. You look stupid enough to get caught for something you didn't do."

"Oh come on, I don't look stupid, I look like a hick!"

"Right," he muttered. He sighed. What to do, what to do? This man didn't seem like the most honest citizen, but he helped save Madoka. "Look, her name is Ma—"

"Her name's Madoka, yours is Kuro-kun—"

"Kuro_gane_."

"Ah, so Kuro-kun is your pet name is it?" The man snickered at Kurogane.

"She's not my girlfriend, wife, lover, or anything like that," he said irritably. "Whatever. I'm going to be gone for a while. You're a stick. Tomorrow, stick around and we'll go down to Hogsmeade—"

"No can do, kiddo, I'm a wanted man," he said.

"Okay, _Snuffles_, but you're NOT a wanted dog," Kurogane said, annoyed with this man. "We'll feed you, you'll take care of her. I'm going to be gone everyday, and you will be her Seeing Eye dog. I'm not turning you in."

"Right. A dog's loving companionship for food. Gotcha." The man grinned.

"Fine. Don't hurt her and…stop sitting on her lap, you got that?"

"Got it."

"I am Kinuta Kurogane of the Sound."

"I'm Sirius Black, ex-prisoner from Azkaban."

* * *

(1) You know...before the chuunin exams, when he was standing upside down in the tree...?

(2) Lee is clueless as to what is coming at him.

(3) Yeah, Kankurou and Kurogane have the same nickname. Kuro from Temari and Madoka.

(4) Okay, okay, I copied that from Finding Nemo… I just love that movie!

(5) Serious --> Sirius I'm just making a pun of the name. It's nothing too important, really.

* * *

**My Thinking Corner:**

EDITTED! Yay! I think I got most of the spelling mistakes, but I don't know. Please forgive any spelling or grammatical errors in this chapter. Not much romance in this chapter or the next few. Like, at all. You aren't the only one disappointed, I suppose. I'm doing my best to learn romance, but I just really suck at it. I PROMISE it'll come eventually, I'm sorry! Anyway, the explanations along with demon characters are on yarochisai . blogspot . com but it really doesn't matter whether you go there or not because it doesn't have anything on it.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Life at Hogwarts

Pairings: Naruto X Hinata, Shikamaru X Temari, Neji X Tenten, Kakashi X Kurenai, Hermione X Ron, Gaara, Sakura, Draco X Pansy, Sasuke X Ino

* * *

Harry's first class was Herbology, where Professor Sprout was joined by a beautiful dark haired, yet mysteriously red-eyed woman. Kiba groaned when he saw here.

"Oh god..."

"You know her?" Ron asked excitedly. He seemed to be unable to look away from her, much to Hermione's dislike.

"She...she used to...be our instructor..." Kiba said, looking rather pale.

"Inuzuka Kiba!" Kurenai said. "Sit straight and listen to Professor Sprout!" Kiba and Akamaru whimpered. S-scary...

"Ah...as I was saying, this is Professor Yuuhi, or you may also call her Assistant Yuuhi..."

"Hm, Naruto, Sakura, Shikamaru, Gaara, and Temari are gone," Hermione said thoughtfully. "And now these new teachers appear out of nowhere. What's going on?"

"Yeah, where's Naruto?" Ron asked Kiba.

"He's going to fail some Chuunin exam," Kiba said nervously.

"H-hai. He's g-going…t-to fail."

"That's not very nice, you two," Hermione said, astonished by Naruto's usually closest friend's lack of loyalty.

"Actually, they're being as nice as they can," Ino said. "They decided last night to become freakishly superstitious and say that Naruto will fail so he can pass. It's like how you try to throw a rock at a pole and miss, but when you throw it towards the pole, you'll accidentally hit it."

Hermione frowned. Sounded too much like Divination.

The class went on. The plant of the day was Gillyweed, which they were harvesting for Professor Snape. Kiba was playing as usual, pretending to eat the worm-like tails of the plant, when Kurenai suddenly appeared from out of nowhere, glaring at him five inches away from his face. Startled, Kiba jumped backwards, toppling out of his chair.

"Inuzuka, get that thing out of your mouth!" Kurenai shouted. Kiba scrambled around, looking for the plant that had disappeared when he began to choke. "_Now_ look what you've done! You swallowed it!" She hit him hard on the back to try and get him to cough up the plant or at least get it down the right tube when she herself jumped backwards.

"K-K-Kiba-kun!" Hinata stuttered pointing at him, although she seemed quite unable to finish her sentence. Ino did it for her.

"You've got gills! You're a FISH!"

* * *

"..." Shino stared at his angry-looking teammate in silence through his sunglasses with what seemed to be a perplexed expression on his face.

"Don't ask," Kiba muttered darkly, wringing out his soaked parka. Ino seemed to be hyperventilating, laying on the ground laughing silently at Kiba. "Oh stuff it, Ino. Don't you dare say a word."

Thanks to Kurenai's quick thinking, she immediately knew that there wasn't enough time to bring Kiba all the way back to the infirmary without him choking to death on air. So... she tossed him into the lake where he later went face-to-face with the giant squid. Luckily, the gillyweed effects wore off after an hour, and he was able to run back to the safety of dry land, where he vowed eternal hatred to all squids and octopi. And now, the fish stink had worn off, only to be replaced by the odor of wet dog.

"Hey mutt!" a voice said.

"Go 'way, Naruto!"

"Wrong blond," Ino said as Malfoy approached.

"What do you want, albino?" Kiba growled.

"Heard about your swim in Herbology," Malfoy said maliciously. "Have a nice time getting eaten by the squid?"

"Talk to me and I'll bite," Kiba threatened. And this was no bluff.

"Hm, I hope you don't have rabies then," Malfoy said with his 'I'm-not-scared-but-you're-sarcastic-right?' look. "We might have to put you down."

"You wanna find out if I do?" Kiba asked, baring his puppy teeth. "Then come over here and say that again after I bit you."

His teeth weren't as sharp as his elders', but they were pointed enough for other people to be a bit more wary of him. Rumors said he was a werewolf, but it wasn't entirely true. He was more like a were_puppy_. Malfoy was about to say something else when a dark blur rushed pass him. Soon after that, Malfoy was trampled by a horde of fangirls—Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor alike.

"You can never actually see Sasuke when he's running away, yet somehow you can always tell when he's coming," Chouji commented as Sasuke threw down a ball and disappeared from his fangirls. Ino suddenly towered over the girls in anger.

"YOU LEAVE MY SASUKE-KUN ALONE!" she snarled with little bits of sparks seeming to come out of her eyes. The girls ran away. Sasuke left from his cover behind Chouji and sighed.

"Dammit, they just won't go away," he muttered. He had been suffering fangirl ambushes throughout the entire morning—at breakfast, during Divination, in the boys' bathroom, and now too. He shuddered at the thought of what would happen to him should any of their ambushes succeed in capturing him. Gaara was, by far, the most frightening Slytherin Sasuke knew, so when he hung around him, he made sure to stay within twenty feet of him, which was as far as Gaara's "anti-intruder" shield went, keeping him safe from the savage beasts called teenage girls. But now, as a Kazekage, Gaara had to fulfill his duties and supervise the Chuunin exams in the Sand. So now, Sasuke had to move to his next option: Shino.

Shino was not as fear-inspiring as the youngest of the Sand siblings, but his outlandish behavior and the mystery of what's-behind-Shino's-coat-number-two (as number one had been burnt to cinder by a Blast-Ended Skrewt), Shino's anti-people shield went as far as almost ten feet. Not much to work with, but it helped to maintain a keep a maximum of seven feet between him and Shino just to be safe.

"S-so...why are they all after you all of a sudden?" Hinata asked.

"Gaara's gone and Kankurou is laughing at my unfortunate expense," Sasuke muttered. "No one is left to scare them of except for Shino and..." And Ino? She might not have an antisocial streak like he and the others, so she had no anti-people shield, but she sure did help get rid of the I-Love-Sasuke fanclub/mob, even if she may have been the president of it.

"Back to the Skrewts, you," Kakashi said, actually bothering to look up from his book. Hm...Kurenai was back... he better hide the book. Later.

Shino and Sasuke, being the only shinobi in Slytherin left, teamed up to battle the disgusting, five foot long skrewt as the other students handled their own giant monstrosities. Actually, quite a few girls were watching him. Shino's people-shield was not as potent as Gaara's. Sasuke frowned. Okay, back to the Skrewt, which was still trying to get past Shino. They surrounded it on both sides and prepared to do battle. Spectators cheered! Sasuke and Shino sweatdropped.

Harry, looking for just any excuse to get away from force feeding his own skrewt, looked over to see just who was at the center of all the girls' attention. Oh, it were those two Slytherins that Naruto constantly insisted had a good heart. Right. Ron looked over too and frowned.

"Honestly, they act as if the skrewts don't escape every day," Ron muttered.

"Ah, Harry!" Hagrid said. Kakashi, who was reading his strange orange book, stood next to him, not really paying attention. "Dumbledore says ye're te meet suma yer teachers outside the Forbidden Fores' tomorrow an' every day after class aroun' eight o' clock."

"For what?" Harry asked.

"He said sum'in abou' a new training," Hagrid said, scratching his head. "Wha' are ye training for? New quidditch moves?" Hermione and Ron looked at Harry.

"Uh...I don't think so," Harry said. And then, he suddenly remembered Dumbledore mentioning his learning techniques like Naruto's. He only hoped it wouldn't involve sticking something up a person's butt like Naruto did with Draco... Otherwise, he was fine.

"Also," Kakashi added, "You'll be meeting all of Hogwarts' newest arrivals. I suppose you've met several today?"

"Ah, yes, if Assistant Professor Yuuhi is one," Harry said.

"Ah, Kurenai," Kakashi said. "She's with Professor Sprout, right?"

"Yeah," Harry said.

"I'll be going then," Kakashi said, wandering away from his class towards the greenhouse.

"You don't suppose he and Professor Yuuhi are going out, do you?" Ron asked.

"Well," Ino said, "It's more like a Shikamaru-Temari relationship. Kakashi's the pushover, you could say."

"Hey, what's going on over there?" Hermione asked, pointing at Shino, Sasuke, and the skrewt.

"A skrewt got loose," Ino said. "What else is new?" The bell rang (Is there a bell in Hogwarts? How do they get dismissed from classes?), signaling the end of Care for Magical Creatures, much to everyone's relief.

All of a sudden, the skrewt's tail thing swung towards Shino's face. He backed away, avoiding direct contact with it. Unfortunately, it had come close enough to knock his sunglasses away. The Golden Trio stared. The spectators gasped. Kiba groaned and Hinata sighed. All Ino could say was "Oh...my..."

* * *

Shino and Sasuke found themselves running franticly down the hallways at breakneck speed. "I _thought _girls didn't like you," Sasuke muttered.

"..." Shino replied angrily. Girls blocked the hallway, the doors shut tight behind them. The dreaded Sasuke Fanclub. Sasuke ran the other way, but Shino was unable to move out of the way in time as girls grabbed his winter cloak and sunglasses. There was a camera too... uh oh.

"Aaaaaaah! Gross!" They're hands pulled away the cloak and sunglasses and Shino's body evaporated into a hive of angrily buzzing insects.

A distraction! Sasuke ran away, but doing so, he caught their attention, and the horde of girls followed after him, dropping Shino's belongings and chasing after their newest prey. Shino came out from behind the closed doors, picked up his jacket and, placing his slightly cracked sunglasses, walked away coolly as if he had not just been facing a life-or-death situation with those fanatical fangirls. Sasuke could take care of himself.

Sasuke's eyes were wide with fear. God damn it! They had absolutely no tracking skills to speak of, yet their persistence spurred them to chase after him for even hours at a time, like a whole pack of wolves chasing down a very pretty looking moose that wasn't really a moose, as you could see.

"Trouble in paradise?" a voice asked as Sasuke hid behind the corner. A pack of screaming girls passed by. Kankurou, leaning against the wall ((Sasuke-style!)), was watching Sasuke's torture in amusement.

"Kankurou, once the coast is clear, I am going to the other side of the hallway to murder you and feed you to Kiba and his dog. In fact, the hallway is clear right now. You are going to die." Sasuke looked both ways before crossing the halls. He didn't want to get run over, after all. Those girls were still at large.

"You know, you really shouldn't," Kankurou insisted, not sure whether to laugh or run away. "And for your information, any guy would just _kill_ for a harem of girls, not _because _of it."

"They can't really be considered a harem because they aren't girls. They're _monsters_, hiding behind an inch thick mask of make-up with a poison called perfume and an affinity for _dolls_. You wouldn't happen to be a one of them, would you?"

Equation- Makeup + Perfume + Dolls: Fanclub Monster

Equation- "Face paint" + Poison + "Puppets" : Kankurou

((Hm...see any odd similarities?))

"I'm NOT wearing makeup, I DON'T wear perfume, and these are NOT DOLLS!" Kankurou shouted, attracting attention of the Sasuke-patrol.

"There he is!" someone cried as a whole pack of them ran at them. Kankurou and Sasuke, stuck between a rock and a hard place, backed away against the stone walls.

"He's over here with...KANKUROU!" They gasped simultaneously.

"Please don't kill us!"

"Shit!" some guy said. "H-hey Kankurou, we didn't do anything yet...!"

"Please don't kill us!"

"W-we j-j-just where g-going t-to t-t-t-talk to S-Sasuke..."

"Please don't kill us!"

Kankurou had a feeling his fun with Sasuke's head had just about ended. "Go ahead and bother Sasuke, it's fine with—"

"Sorry for bothering you, Kankurou sir, we'll be on our way! Seeya!" And they ran away... Kankurou sighed. Great. Alone with the guy who wanted to kill him again.

"Now that they're gone..." Sasuke said slowly. "...I can kill you." See?

"We're not quite alone, you know," Kankurou said. He pointed to the walls with the people in the pictures waving cheerfully down at them. "The walls have ears _and_ ears. Oh look, a girl..." Sasuke jumped, but found that it was only Ino. She grinned at Sasuke, laughter in her eyes.

"Uh, hey Ino," he said nervously. Nervous? It must have been all those close encounters with the other girls.

"Hey, Sasuke," she said. "I hear you've got some girl problems."

"Yeah, but not the usual girl problems..." Sasuke muttered.

"And it's not only girls either," Kankurou added cheerfully.

"Shut up, Kankurou."

"Weeeell," Ino said, "I just happen to have a solution to both of our problems!"

"What's _your _problem...?" Sasuke asked, eyeing her warily.

Ino grinned. "And here's the solution!" She took out a small cube-like object. "Muggles call this... the Polaroid Device!"

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "...A what?"

She tossed it to Kankurou, who turned it on. She had shown him how to use it earlier.

"I'll show you what it does," she said. She leaned close and kissed him. Something flashed, and it wasn't some mind trick. Sasuke looked at Kankurou, who held the flashing Polaroid Device.

"...What?" Sasuke seemed stunned. Well, it was definitely better than his first kiss. He shuddered at the thought of Naruto. Creepy. Gross. Naruto. But he didn't need to remember that, and that wasn't the point.A little white plastic sheet came out of the blinking Polaroid Device and Sasuke looked at it. It was blank, but the light was growing darker as a two figures became a bit more clear.

"..." It was a picture. A picture of himself and Ino kissing. And he wasn't pulling away! "Ino..."

Kankurou handed the photo to Ino.

"Yes, Sasuke?"

"Inoo..."

"RUN, INO, RUN!" Kankurou cried, laughing as Sasuke began to chase after her for the picture.

"Give me that!"

"I will! For another kiss!" Ino said as he chased after her. He was so cute when he blushed like that.

"Give it to me!"

"The picture or the kiss?"

Kankurou collapsed with laughter as the two ran down the hall. Until a shadow that was not a shadow appeared. It was... Shino! Him and his bugs... Ugh.

"So that was what Ino was up to..." Shino said.

"Yup," Kankurou said.

"...I thought it was odd when you suddenly went out with that Sorry girl."

"Her name's Sarea."

"She's too pretty for you. I should have suspected that Ino must have had something to do with it..."

"...You've been talking a lot more, lately, haven't you?"

"No."

"...Whatever."

* * *

Ino looked at her reflection in the scrying mirror, in love with herself all over again. Chouji didn't care. He was just eating. But he noticed something a bit different than usual. The light incense that Professor Trelawny always lit in her classroom was a lot thicker than usual. Not only that—it stunk too.

Kiba grimaced. "Someone's smoking?"

Smoke? Cigarettes...

"Hey, Asuma-sensei," Chouji said.

'_Who's Asuma_?' Harry wondered, but his question was answered by the voice that replied from behind him.

"Hey, Chouji," a man said, appearing out of a particularly thick part of the fog in the classroom.

"I didn't know that you were coming!" Ino said.

"Didn't I say I was in the letter?" Asuma wondered. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and put it out on the stand for Harry's crystal ball.

"Well, your name _was_ in the letter, but you weren't the one who wrote it anyway," Ino said.

"True, true..."

Throughout the entire class, Asuma was surprisingly helpful to Trelawney. Whenever she seemed at lost for words, having ran out of strange ways to die, Asuma was there to make a suggestion.

"Harry, you will fall into a sewer pit and die, while your friend Ron will cut his finger and get AIDs. Remember, tragedy is when you cut yourself. Comedy is when you fall into a sewer pit and die. So even if you don't die laughing, we'll laugh for you."

"Gee, thanks," Harry said wryly. He could actually imagine that guy laughing at his funeral. A bit odd, really.

Asuma probably would have said Chouji would have died of a heart attack, but he did seem a bit less fat than before. It was probably the constant running he did between classes and the fights the class had with Hagrid's skrewts.

"Assistant Asuma," Trelawney said. "Please refrain from smoking in this environment. You are destroying the mystical vibrations to the future."

"Hey, only _half _of this is my smoke. The other half is yours."

"Well I am not smoking incense," Trelawney said curtly. "My Inner Eye tells me that should you not cease from this unhealthy habit, you will fall off of the Divination ladder to your death. And should you survive that, you would die of lungrot with all of that smoke in your lungs."

"Well, something tells me your Inner Eye needs glasses, Miss," Asuma said. "I'm not going to die from a little fall, and I'm probably not going to die of a little smoke either."

* * *

The next day, Harry woke up. He still wasn't used to the off sound of silence, now that Naruto had left. What happened to the explosions? The accidental trigger for the smoke bombs? The _pranks_?

And then, he remembered that since Naruto had gone, others had come. Today, he would be meeting all of the new teachers together. He couldn't wait. What would he learn? What type of powers did these _real_ mercenaries have? (1)

While changing to his school robes, Harry winced, remembering his classes. Well, History of Magic was a free naptime. Transfiguration wasn't all that bad. Defense Against Dark Arts with Moody was always exciting. But then...Potions. Ugh.

Harry took his time on the way to Binn's class. Kiba came running up to Hinata with a book in his hand, which was odd since he would rather eat a book than read it. He showed it to her with a grin and began laughing. Even Hinata smiled. Ino and Chouji came and found it rather amusing.

"What's that?" Ron asked them.

"A book," Kiba said bluntly. "On ninjas. They do KARATE and KUNG FU! They also spend their free time cutting off people's heads, but sometimes they fly. A hobby of theirs." He smiled. He grinned. And then he collapsed on the floor laughing.

"Mr. Inuzuka, please refrain from fainting in the classroom," a voice said. Harry jumped. A lot have people have been making him do that lately. It must have been all these new teachers.

A man with hair like Shikamaru's and a scar running across his nose grinned at Kiba, who shrunk back like a frightened dog.

"Hey, Iruka-sensei," he whimpered.

"Kiba, have you done something again?" Iruka asked.

"Not yet..."

"Good. Let's keep it that way," Iruka said with a smile.

"Is he like Assistant Yuuhi?" Harry asked him.

"Um...no. He taught us all when we were just academy students," Kiba said.

"Kiba and Naruto could never get away with their tricks when he was around," Chouji said. "No matter what, he always chased after them until they collapsed. Then he would drag them back to the Third Hokage, and sometimes he'd collapse himself."

"A stubborn guy," Ino said. "But he's a good one."

"A good guy? A GOOD guy? He swatted Akamaru when we were little!"

"Well Akamaru peed on his desk. I think Iruka-sensei had a perfectly reasonable excuse to swat him. Besides, it was only a newspaper. How much could it hurt?"

"Now, I understand that we are reviewing the goblin rebellion?" Iruka asked the class as Professor Binns droned on at the blackboard, not really seeming to know that Iruka was even there.

Hermione, being the only person who kept track of what Professor Binns taught, raised her hand.

"Yes, miss..."

"Granger?"

"Yes, Miss Granger?"

"We did not completely finish the whole rebellion. We were only in the first ten years, while the rest of the century, we had not gotten to yet."

The class groaned. A whole century more of goblins?

"Ah, well, that knocks my schedule back a bit. Well then..." He skimmed through the textbook. "Okay, so... Goblins... Alright." He closed the textbook, much to everyone's surprise. "It all started when two kid—two _human _kids—robbed Gringotts. This isn't in the textbook by the way. Anyway, the girl Kitchel and the boy Thatz, well, they got hit by a horse and died, but the point is that these two little kids started this whole mess between the two largest goblin clans. The goblins in Gringotts claimed that the other goblins, who formerly owned the island in which the prison of Azkaban is located, had sent the two children to destroy their reputation and stuff like that. Now, it seems like a small thing to us, two little kids running off with a handful of Galleons, but to them, well, just think: the most secure places on earth, complete with dragons and curses and all, had been broken into by kids who barely knew any magic. Not only that, but there was some extensive damage to the dragons and the treasure vaults..."

Harry didn't bother taking notes, but not because he wasn't paying attention. The way Iruka taught, he understood it. Binns—who was floating off somewhere and talking about something that nobody cared about anyway—never taught them like this. He just wasn't interesting. Iruka even liked teaching.

"Now, your assignment is going to be a group project. I don't care how many people are in a group. But you're going to make a skit. I'll assign each of you a part in the goblin war. Then, you will do a play, acting out parts of certain people. You can be actual wizards and goblins, or you can be general states, fighting over more land. Whatever. Keep it interesting, alright? And, ah, this will be due in a month. The rough draft of the script will be in a week..."

Everybody quickly wrote down this project, eager to begin. Groups were already forming, the largest being Harry's group itself, with his two friends, the shinobi, and a handful of other students. The bell rang. Harry quickly gathered his belongings, which remained untouched throughout the entire lecture, and headed for the next class. Professor McGonagall's transfiguration class. She had no assistant, but performed well enough on their own, teaching them how to create actual living objects from the inanimate. Today, they were to focus on turning a plate into a tortoise.

After Transfiguration, they headed to Defense Against Dark Arts. Harry bumped into someone and looked up to find himself staring at a scarred face.

"Oops, sorry, Professor Moody," Harry said. Wait. That wasn't Mad-Eye Moody! This guy was taller and a bit more scarred. He walked without the rhythmic beating of wood on stone. And his eye was gone.

"Moody, you grew!" Ron said stupidly. "And where's your eye?"

"That's not Professor Moody," Hinata said.

"I'm Assistant Morino Ibiki. You can call me Ibiki. Or Morino. Or Assistant Morino. Or Assistant Ibiki. Whatever," the man said.

"Tired of scaring littler kids?" Kiba asked him.

"Who told you?"

"Anko."

"Oh."

"I don't get it," Hermione said.

"Ibiki got sent here because he kept scaring away the academy students," Kiba snickered. Akamaru barked, clearly remembering the wasted effort he made to help Kiba cheat in the chuunin exams.

"And I don't blame them," Chouji said. He was scared of Ibiki when he was little too. "Ibiki's a scary guy."

"Now," Professor Moody growled, "Today, I will teach you to detect murder attempts. Particularly poison. From what I already know about Severus, he's probably not teaching you all very well. And I heard about his assistant from Ibiki. Chances are, she's making it even worse, if possible. So, with this spell, you could see whether people are hiding something, like what I have with my eye..." His assistant? Harry wondered how it could possibly be any worse... But even Fred and George warned him about it.

Harry spent the rest of the class listening to Moody's Constant Vigilance and Ibiki's Spying lectures. He never thought there'd be a guy exactly like Moody. Just how many of him were there! They were both paranoid. They were both scarred. They even had that same crazed-but-dead-serious look about them! And whenever Ibiki set his sights on them, Harry felt guilty and as if he were being squeezed for information. He looked around at the others.

Kiba was paying too much attention to Akamaru. Hinata was pressing her two index fingers together nervously. The rate at which Chouji was eating his chips had considerably slowed down. Ino was looking out the window. Ron looked scared out of his mind. Shino and Sasuke weren't even paying attention to him, seeming more wary of the threat from behind (girls...). Hermione was fascinated as usual ('_The way he makes me feel...he must be so experienced in his spy work! I must learn how to do that!_').

Everybody ran out of the classroom as soon as possible once the bell rang, oh so eager to leave. _Two _of them... Well, they were just lucky they didn't have Muggle Studies...

The last class of the day was Potions with Snape. Normally, Harry was constantly being ridiculed by his inferior potion making skills. But ever since those so-called 'mercenaries'—as Dumbledore called them—arrived, things had gone from bad to worse. But at least not for Harry. Professor Snape had difficulties in every Gryffindor classes. Now, he not only disliked any class with Gryffindors in it. He _dreaded_ it. Naruto and Kiba were especially horrible in that class. Harry remembered their first class with pleasure. Professor Snape was especially close to losing his head in the middle of class.

* * *

**Flashback**

_The Potions class was just like any other. Just add a handful of shinobi, which meant a _tiny _bit more chaos than usual. _

_"Naruto-kun…that's snake skin, not beetle wings…"_

_"Nah, it's close enough, Hinata-chan."_

_"AAAAAAAAH!" _

_Moments later, the class filed out of the classroom, laughing at Naruto and his sixth major explosion today. Of course, the Slytherins were a bit less amused. _

_"Honestly, Uzumaki," Malfoy said. "Are you really that stupid? Even Neville's not so useless."_

_"Shut up—" What was his name again…? "—you albino brat!" Yeah... that sounded right. _

_"Did you just call me albino?"_

_"Oh, are you deaf too? And do you grease your hair? Because it's not good for your complexion. You'll get pimples!"_

_"Ano…Naruto-kun…"_

_"OW! Owowowow!" The angry Potions professor grasped Naruto by the ear. "Hey, lemme go!"_

_"Headmaster Dumbledore ought to see this. And sixty points from Gryffindor, ten for each accident."_

_

* * *

_

And then…Naruto left. Fred and George, who had his class told Ron, Harry, and Hermione that Snape had also received a new assistant. Harry headed for the dungeons, trudging slowly in his step. Rumors flew. The Potions Assistant was the most horrible, fear-provoking monster of a woman ever. _She _was frighteningly...enthusiastic. Harry heard that just being around her put Snape on a frenzy, but he wasn't sure what to make of that. 'Frenzy...' Like a feeding frenzy? Like a shark? This couldn't be good.

But ooooh, it was. He just wouldn't figure that out until the end of the class.

Harry stepped into the classroom, wondering which person from the front tables was Snape's scary assistant, until he found himself staring at the woman standing next to Professor Snape. THIS was the assistant? A cheerful looking girl with black hair pulled up into a ponytail and a cheerful looking grin! She couldn't have even been over twenty-five! She wasn't pretty like Kurenai, but she was cute!

She introduced herself as Assistant Anko, or just Anko, since she claimed that she didn't have a last name. The girl seemed rather busy during the beginning of the class. She began flipping through pages of a book labeled "Potion's Log". Professor Snape scowled and snatched it from her hands. Anko glared at him. She started going through the potion's cabinet, which was full of the ingredients that they would use for class. Professor Snape waved his wand and slammed the door closed. Anko quickly moved her hands before her fingers were crushed and glared at him. She ran into his office and began tossing up the desks and chairs, flipping paper everywhere. Professor Snape would have turned red with anger had he not been so pasty white. Looking rather irritated, he waved his wand. The desks and chairs righted themselves back into their normal positions. The papers returned back in the drawers in the desk and cabinets as they looked themselves. Smaller items like quills disappeared, probably returning to wherever they had flown out off. Harry had one last glimpse of Anko's irritated face as the door to Professor Snape's office shut itself on her, locking her inside. They heard her muffled protests for a while until the potions master finally got fed up by her shouting and cast a silencing spell on the room.

"Oi..." Ron muttered. "I thought only our potions could get that kind of reaction from Snape. Assistant Anko even got his eye twitching. Only _Fred and George_ ever managed to do that!"

They spent the next thirty minutes in silence. Harry could almost hear Anko, still beating on the door. She was probably still shouting. And then, he didn't have to wonder whether she was shouting or not. Because they actually heard her.

"Heeeeey!" she said. "What's wrong with you? I was in there, you know!"

"You were being a distraction to my class," Professor Snape said.

"I...you...your MOM'S a distraction!" (2)

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, you just don't get it..."

Professor Snape frowned and shook his head. He first tried to force her to sit in the corner. It didn't work. So he then decided to ignore Anko as long as he could, hoping that she'd get bored and give up trying to bother him. It didn't work, as he soon found out.

Professor Snape glared at Harry and his potion. "Potter, it's supposed to be green, tinged with blue, not the other way around. _Ten points from Gryffindor_. Do it again."

Assistant Anko grinned and hit Hermione on the head in what was supposed to be a congratulatory way. "Granger! Good job, you didn't screw it up. Ten points _to _Gryffindor." Hermione stared at the crack on the desk that had been formed by the impact of her forehead, wincing as she rubbed her head in pain...

Hearing this, Professor Snape scowled at Anko, who smiled sweetly in return. "_Yeeeeeees_...?" she asked, batting her eyes sweetly at the guy. "Gee, did I _ruin _something for you?"

The professor glared and turned on Neville who was sitting behind Anko, cowering in fear. Now Harry understood why the other students now dreaded Potions class even more so than before. With Assistant Anko around, the room was filled with suffocating tenseness. While people constantly were losing or gaining points for their house, it seemed that Assistant Anko would nullify it just to spite the Potions Master.

"Longbottom, that is not the right potion," he said. "Fifty points off for endangering the class with your dissatisfactory potion skills."

Anko squinted at the result of Neville's potion. Then she looked in a something like a tiny little pocket dictionary. Then she squinted at Neville's potion again. Poor, unfortunate Neville, who usually spent half the class being picked on by Professor Snape, was now getting twice the attention. One half plus another half makes a whole! A whole class of excessive attention! AS if his life wasn't miserable enough!

"Oh my god!" Anko cried in mock surprise. "Longbottom… you made the wrong potion. You accidentally added the beetle legs before the frog guts, and then mixed two to the left and to the right when it's two to the right then one to the left. Wow... this isn't half bad actually. This is the beginning of a wolfsbane potion...! _Fifty-ONE points to Gryffindor for this AMAZING fluke_!" She looked at Hinata, who looked just as fearful as Neville, as usual, and grinned.

"I'd say something encouraging, but your freaky-bug partner still creeps me out!" Anko said, looking at Shino with a grin.

"Hey, Hinata," Ron said to the girl once Anko had left to terrorize Kiba. Naruto wasn't the only one missing. The creepy Gaara kid was gone, too. She was partnered with Shino now. "Where'd Naruto go again? And Gaara?" He hadn't noticed their disappearance in Care for Magical Creatures with all those Skrewts running around.

"Ano…he went home," she replied.

"Really? Where's that? Japan?" Hermione asked.

"W-well, ah, y-yes, s-sort of...

"Nevermind, Ron," Hermione said, taking note of the girl's scared face. Hinata always looked scared though.

"Ah, I think they'll be back on the ninth," Hinata said.

"Yeah, and Gaara's gone?"

"And Temari and Shikamaru and Sakura," Hinata said. "Kankurou's staying here though."

"Oh. So what's with all these new people?" he asked. "These professors are crazy."

"Hinata..." a voice said.

Harry and Hinata looked up at Shino. He said something again!

"Sorry, Harry, Hermione, Ron, I have to work now," Hinata said, although she had already finished brewing the potion.

"So I wonder where they went?" Hermione asked as they headed towards Great Hall. "Sakura and Shikamaru weren't in my classes."

"Maybe they turned into one of those psycho teachers in disguise!" Ron said.

"Don't be silly, Ron," Hermione said. "Just how many metamorphmagi are there in the world?" What was a metamorphmagi? "Anyway, just how many new teachers have arrived?"

"Not sure," Harry said. "Hey, what's going on here?"

When they arrived in the entrance hall, they found themselves unable to proceed owing to the large sign that had been put up at the foot of the marble staircase. Ron, the tallest of the three, stood on his toes to see over the heads in front of them and read the sign out loud to the other two:

**TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT**

_"The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving at 6 'o clock on Friday, October 9, 2005. Lessons will end half an hour early—_

"Brilliant!" Harry said. "Potions is the last thing we've got on Friday! And with Kurenai, they'll probably start fighting again and then they won't be able to poison us all!"

_"Students will return their bags and books to their dormitories and assemble in front of the castle to greet our guests before the welcoming feast. Only students dressed in appropriate attire_—_Hogwarts or otherwise formal/semi-formal wear_—_will be allowed to be present for their arrival onto Hogwarts grounds."_

"Hogwarts or otherwise formal, semi-formal wear?" Ron read. "What else do we have aside from Hogwarts uniforms?"

"Well, it could be for the Japanese students," Hermione said. "They do hate our dress code."

"Except for that Sasuke guy," Fred said, appeared next to the Golden Trio.

"Well, he'd go for anything doused in black dye," George said.

"Very true. Unless it were a pink tutu."

"If it were a pink tutu, then it wouldn't be black."

"Also very true."

"Oh boy, this is only a week away!" Ernie from Hufflepuff said, having finished reading the post. "I've got to go tell Cedric!"

"Cedric…?" Ron said blankly as Ernie hurried off.

"Diggory," said Harry. "He must be entering the tournament."

The appearance of the sign in the entrance hall had a marked effect upon the inhabitants of the castle. During the following week, there seemed to be only one topic of conversation, no matter where Harry went: the Triwizard Tournament. Rumors were flying from student to student like highly contagious germs: who was going to try for Hogwarts champion, what the tournament would involve, how the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang differed from themselves.

The castle seemed to be undergoing an extra-thorough cleaning. Several grimy portraits had been scrubbed, much to the displeasure of their subjects, who sat huddled in their frames muttering darkly and wincing as they felt their raw pink faces. The suits of armor were suddenly gleaming and moving without squeaking, and Argus Filch, the caretaker, was behaving so ferociously to any student who forgot to wipe his or her shoes that he terrified a pair of first-year girls into hysterics and ran off Hinata back to the Gryffindor room. Akamaru peed on Ms. Norris.

* * *

**Muggle Studies**

"Honestly, I have a bad feeling about today," Neji said. "It would be best for both of us to avoid our classes today."

"Why?" Tenten asked, as she and Neji were heading for their next class.

"I don't know, it's just a bad feeling," he replied.

"Oh come on," Tenten said, grinning up at him. "We're shinobi. Whatever these teachers throw at us, it can't be _that_ bad."

"DO NOT FRET!" Lee shouted from behind them. Tenten jumped, although Neji had already seen Lee coming.

"Stop doing that, Lee..." Neji said. He had a prickly feeling go down his spine.

"BUT YOU ARE _WORRIED!_" Lee shouted. "JUST BELIEVE IN THE FLAME OF YOUR YOUTH AND YOU AND TENTEN SHALL LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER!"

"Lee, just because we aren't hiding a relationship anymore doesn't mean we want to advertise it," Neji said. "If I wanted everyone to know about me and Tenten, I would grab a loudspeaker and run around the whole school shouting about it."

Tenten frowned and rolled her eyes. What did Neji do wrong now?

"Honestly, Neji, stop being such a prat and come on," Tenten said, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"I'm not a prat," Neji said. "And what's with you talking like these wizards?"

Suddenly, Lee stopped walking.

"What's wrong, Lee?"

His circular eyes began to fill up with tears. Neji and Tenten backed away.

"G-GAI-SENSEI!" he cried out.

WHAT! Could that freak of a man actually still be here? Neji had thought that he had only been eating in the Great Hall for just that one meal, only to return back to Konoha later that day. Or at least, that's what he had been hoping for.

"Is he really here?" Tenten gasped. "Lee only acts this way within a 50 feet radius of him!"

"He is!" Neji said, seeing his teacher in his Byakugan. "R-run! He's coming right at us!"

"Oh no!" Tenten and Neji ran away from the classroom, only to find Gai blocking the way in the halls.

"GAI-SENSEI!" Lee cried.

"LEE!" Oh no... the room became a field.

"GAI-SENSEI!" Rock Lee began running to Gai.

"LEE!" Gai began running to Lee.

"GAI-SENSEI!" They hugged. Neji hit his forehead. Fools! Couldn't they field-en the face outside of the _classroom_? Now there was grass inside the room.

"Ahem," Professor Evans said, clearing his throat as the field faded away and became a normal classroom. "This is my assistant, Maito Gai. So, today in Muggle Studies, we will _observe an actual Muggle_...!"

Neji sighed.

"Gai's a muggle?" Tenten asked Neji in his ear.

"Ugh, I guess he is now..." Neji said, watching his own teacher, in humiliation, do the cool guy pose and blind everyone with his teeth. Gods, kill him now before they realized that he and Gai knew each other! Wait, don't strike _Neji_ with lightning! Hit Gai, HIT GAI!

"NEJI, MY STUDENT, COME UP HERE WITH LEE AND ME AND DO THE COOL GUY POSE WITH US!"

Neji groaned. Too late.

* * *

(1) Harry still doubts their awesomeness. With all of the older shinobi about, he's more impressed because they seem, well, older. More experience? Something like that.

(2) Yeah, it's one of those lame jokes.

* * *

**My Thinking Corner**

Should I do a FullMetal Alchemist X Harry Potter fiction? Honestly, I never really liked fictions before. And then I liked it. And I didn't like crossovers. Now I like that too. Anyway, I just don't know. Because this fiction takes up enough time already, with classwork too. And then I'm only in the first (barely the second) month of October in Harry Potter, and there's going to be a Year 5, 6, and 7 (mainly because I'm not going to fit Akatsuki in here very much). This is going to take a veeery long time. Also, I am starting a sci-fi-ish Naruto fiction, and What If Naruto fiction and a whole bunch of others (listed in my profile) and stuff. Too many ideas all at once, and I promised myself (and practically my entire family) that I only play on weekends which isn't necessarily true, I suppose... Oh well.

Anyway, if anyone noticed, Kitchel and Thatz are two characters from Dragon Knights, although that has nothing to do with this fic. I just really really like their names.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Adventures in Sunagakure

As Naruto stepped through the arches, he felt as if some sort of invisible force was pulling him from all sides, and it was completely dark in there. Or maybe it was just so bright he had trouble seeing, because his eyes were stinging. All of a sudden, there was a sudden flash of bright light. Naruto blinked, his eyes watering. Okay, there was Temari, Gaara, Sakura, and Shikamaru, already there on the other side of the arch.

Ah, Vikki said to Naruto, eyeing the sand outside the window disdainfully. So this is the Sand. It's been a while...

Well of course it was the Sand! Would a village in the middle of the desert be called ocean? Of course not!

"Kazekage-sama, Temari-san," Baki said, one of the many people present in the room. "Welcome back from your mission."

"Don't think that I am staying," Gaara said. "This is a long term mission. I still have at least one more year."

"We understand," Baki said truthfully. "And things have been quite peaceful after you left, and saying this, I mean it in a _not _offending way. And, so long as you lay low, you should be safe from Akatsuki. Now, about your paperwork..."

"I understand. I'll finish it toni—"

"Ah, you misunderstand. Your assistant has been keeping your office clean. The only paperwork you have left are assigning missions to various shinobi that only you have the authority to rule over and...yes, that's all."

"...What assistant?"

"HI GAARA!" a voice said. Vikki jumped and fell out of Naruto's bag in surprise at the mere volume of a siren's voice. A very cheerful sounding siren.

Gaara twitched as he turned around. Fear slowed his movements. He knew who that voice belonged to...

"Gaara? Gaara-kun? Gaara-sama? Gaara-san? Gaara-kichi? Hellooooo?"

"Mikoto..." Gods no... It's _her_.

"So you _did_ hear me! So do I have to call you 'Gaara-kichi' just to get your attention now...?"

"If you do, then I'll kill you."

"Ooh, that's not good for me then, is it? Aah, you're blushing from your nickname!"

"I am _not_."

"Well it _would _be funny if you _were_, Mr. I'm-too-cool-to-have-any-facial-expressions!"

Naruto gasped. Vikki grinned. He liked this girl. Naruto shook his head. Who on earth had the gall and the courage to stand up to Gaara? He turned around to look at the offender and—WHAT THE HELL?

There were TWO red heads in the room. Next to Gaara stood a girl with red hair of several different shades and dark marks around her eyes. Just...like...GAARA! Well, no wonder this person had enough courage to talk in such a friendly manner with Gaara. It practically WAS Gaara! Only her hair was a bit longer, but that was besides the point.

"Are you, like, Gaara's twin?" Naruto asked.

"Does Gaara have a fanclub?" Sakura wondered out loud. "Because even Sasuke's fanclub doesn't go around dressing up like him. Much." Gaara shuddered. All of hell would break loose the moment _he _had a _fanclub_.

"I'm Mikoto," the girl said cheerfully. "And no, I'm not dressing up like Gaara-kichi—"

"Don't call me that..."

"—I have nothing to do with sand—"

"Except you live in a sea, village, and country of it..."

"—and my sleeping and eating and talking patterns are perfectly normal!"

"If you call sleeping eighteen hours a day, eating four sugarloaded and, or, caffeinated meals during the six hours you're awake, and talking a hundred words a minute perfectly normal..."

"Mikoto is from a smaller village that is also in the desert," Temari said to them. "It's actually some sort of style there to wear thick eyeliner." (1)

"Really?" Naruto asked.

"Yup. It was so _weird _when 'Kuro, Gaara, and I went there," Temari said, shaking her head at the memory of it all. "It was like, a whole city of Gaara's. Minus the red hair of course. And darker skin. Most are blonds and brunettes."

"I'm abnormal!" Mikoto said cheerfully. "Even my mom and dad had black hair. But then, the twins before me were born with blond. And me red! Phenomenal, I know... It's _cool_." Right. This girl was not Gaara. Looked like him a bit. But not like him at all. Did that make sense?

"Don't you have a last name?" Shikamaru asked the girl.

She frowned, making some sort of twisted yet somewhat cheerful looking version of Gaara's angry scowl that wasn't really angry at all. Just annoyed. "_No_," she said stubbornly, crossing her arms in front of her in a very Gaara like style.

"Yes, she does," Temari said. "And it's Makoto."

"Really?" Shikamaru said, raising an eyebrow.

"Makoto?" Sakura repeated in disbelief.

"Makoto Mikoto!" Naruto exclaimed, laughing. Vikki seemed to be coughing up a furball. What was he, a cat?

"Yes, Mikoto's family has some sort of crazy affinity for 'M' names," Temari said, laughing.

"Temaaari! You told!" the girl said, debating whether to attempt to jump Temari or Naruto, who was laughing on the floor. Sakura giggled and Shikamaru just shook his head, wondering just what her parents were smoking when they had her. Mikoto decided on Naruto.

"Aaah!" Naruto cried as two sandaled feet met his face. "Midget!"

"Idiot!"

"Stupid girl-Gaara!"

"Dumb blond bastard!"

"I'll kill you!"

"I'll eat you!"

"..." No one said anything.

Mikoto frowned. "Did I just say that?"

Yes you did, Vikki replied, although Naruto was the only one who heard that.

Gaara sighed and shook his head. Turning to the other people in the room, he finally said something to them. "Have you anything to say?" he asked them. "If not, you're dismissed."

"Ah, Kazekage-sama," one of the people said as the others stood up from their bowing to leave. "We heard that you were killed by the Akatsuki."

"Ah, I see. Disappointed, Fuji?"

The man looked shocked. Perhaps at being discovered? "N-no, of course not, Kazekage-sama. I only wish for you and your safety."

"Well that's nice," Gaara said. "Is that all?"

"Y-yes, sir," the man said, bowing one more time and leaving.

"That wasn't very nice, Gaara," Sakura said as the last of them all left.

"When I was taken by Akatsuki, there was a discussion between the elders and elites. And the only reason I became the Kazekage was because they feared me, and they feared me because I am more powerful. Should the former Kazekage not have been killed, it would have been a unanimous vote against me because Temari and Kankurou are the only ones who would back me up."

"Hey, I like you too, Gaara-kichi!" Gaara's 'assistant' said. "I'd vote you for anything because I LOVE you sooooo much!" She waved her arms, as if trying to express her love for him in size. Not that big, actually.

"...Stop calling me that. And you don't matter because you aren't old or powerful."

"I _could_ be old or powerful..." she said, pouting.

"Shikamaru, come on!" Temari said, pulling on his arm.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I told you to!" Temari said, dragging Shikamaru out of the room. His eye twitched.

"_Mendokusei_..."

Mikoto laughed. "Temari's showing off her boyfriend already!" she said. "And they just arrived!"

Like a puppy with her new toy. A really big, living, breathing toy that actually may enjoy being dragged around...

"Don't remind me," Gaara said, glaring at Shikamaru and Temari's rapidly shrinking figures as they left the office and passed by the window.

"Don't kill Shikamaru, Gaara," Naruto said nervously. "He's supposed to be a smart guy."

"I wouldn't kill him." No, of course not. He's stick him in a coffin of sand and 'bury' him alive in it. That would kill him. Gaara wouldn't.

"Where is Tsunade-sama?" Sakura asked Gaara, changing the subject.

"How should I know?" Gaara replied. "I just got here."

"Hm, a report says that a Leaf lady with giant boobs is playing at the casino!" Mikoto said.

"Already?" Sakura gasped. "How long has she been here?"

"Hm...fifteen minutes. She went straight to the casino."

Sakura sighed and looked at Shikamaru.

"She's _your_ kage," Gaara said.

"But it's your village. Don't you think you could just kick her out of the casino and send her straight here?"

"I could, but your Hokage may cause extensive damages to our buildings if we did so."

Naruto laughed. "Let's pick her up ourselves then!"

"Don't you need to register for the Chuunin exams?" Mikoto asked Naruto. "The deadline is in, like...thirty minutes."

"THIRTY MINUTES!"

"Sakura and I will get Tsunade," Gaara said. "Mikoto, you help Naruto register for the exams. And here." He gave her a slip of parchment from his gourd.

"Aye-aye, Kazekage-sama!" Mikoto said, saluting enthusiastically before running off with Naruto following behind.

"Where's the casino?" Sakura asked Gaara.

"Not to far. Sometimes at night I just go across the street and..." Why was he telling her this?

Sakura laughed. "I can see it under Sunagakure headlines: Underaged Kazekage Caught Gambling Illegally At Adult Casino," she said with a grin.

"Ah, the horrors of the paparazzi," Gaara muttered. "How I hate them oh so much."

"Yeah. There were always a whole bunch after Tsunade-sama, nagging her about her gambling problem and saying how her boobs weren't real, but it became old news after they realized that she didn't care, her boobs aren't _that_ fake, and she's an old woman. And—"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I LOST?" someone inside the casino shouted.

"Oh no," Sakura said. She and Gaara ran towards the casino and saw Tsunade showing her ugly side (the one that wasn't an old woman, though).

"Tsunade-sama!" Sakura said as the fabled Rokudaime of Konoha flipped over a table. And threw it across the room. She turned around.

"Ah, Sakura," Tsunade said, as if nothing had happened.

"You shouldn't be gambling here!" Sakura chided. "You'll start having to borrow money from the Konoha treasury in a matter of days!"

"Are you saying I'm bad at gambling?" Tsunade asked her.

"Um...well..."

"I suppose that means yes," Gaara said.

"Ah, Kazekage!" Tsunade shouted as if she hadn't seen him. "Hi! It's good to see you in good condition. Or at least alive anyway. I see you're still the little freakish insomniac as before."

"I'll overlook that last comment," Gaara said stiffly. He kept on looking at Sakura, but not for any really _specific _reason. Other than to keep himself from looking at that Hokage's abnormally large breasts. Good god, were they really real?

"So, where is that blond idiot of a boy?" Tsunade asked them, looking around. "I thought he'd be here by now."

"My...that girl...I had a subordinate go with him to register."

"Hm, oh that Mikoto girl? She said she was your assistant."

"That's what she thinks. I don't have an assistant."

"Oh, well I heard other people saying she was your _student_," she said.

"She wouldn't stop interrupting my work until I accepted her as one," he replied.

"Your _student_?" Sakura repeated incredulously. She never knew Gaara had the patience for a girl like that. Sure, with her cheerful nature, it seemed that Mikoto could get along with anyone. But Gaara getting along with another person? Any other person? A person who acted like a girl Naruto, but looked like a girl Gaara? Odd.

"Yes... My...student," he said.

"What did she learn from you then?" Tsunade asked. "Surely she can't use sand the way you can."

"Not much," Gaara answered. "In fact, she better suited for Kankurou's kind of work."

"Puppets?"

"Not quite. Poison. Kankurou and I switched students, sort of. I got the older sister, god knows where she could be...and Temari's got the brother. Mariku has also been learning different types of poisons from things I've been sending them recently... The twin's will probably send back some merchandise. I give them equipment, they give me... free samples."

"Interesting," Tsunade said. "I wonder who's better, you're friends' poisoning or Sakura's healing."

"Let's not find out," Sakura said nervously. From all of the shinobi she had ever seen graduate from the Sand, she didn't want to pick a fight with any one of them, genin, chuunin, or anything.

"Right," Gaara said, "although we should keep a healthy amount of healers around here. Mikoto's going to be in the Chuunin Exams too."

* * *

"Hurry up, Naruto!" Mikoto said.

"Ah, but I'm hungry!" Naruto said. The first thing he had been planning on doing was to have a nice bowl of ramen once he got back. Instead, he was dragged across town by a girl in a rush to apply for the Chuunin Exams.

"Food can wait, we're here!"

"Mikoto?"

"Maruko?" Mikoto looked around and saw who was speaking. A girl with blond hair of different shades was sitting in a chair reading some magazine.

"Hi," the girl said. Maruko smiled, setting down some magazine. Daily Prophet? How did they get their hands on wizard magazines? Naruto grinned.

"Hey, what's with the fox?" the Maruko girl asked.

* * *

"Hm..." Jiraiya muttered, rubbing his head. The sand was still settling down. The wrecked walls of the bathhouse were in pieces on the ground, while a girl with a giant fan stood up straight, after decimating the bathhouse and several nearby buildings. "How to get out of this one...?"

That was the problem with women. They were like elephants. You look, but don't touch. You might like them as much as you want, but you _don't_ want to have one. Nearby, a person coughed. A fellow peeping tom? Ah-ha! The solution to his problem! He grabbed the man and stuck him in his own place, effectively switching places.

"Y-you!" Temari said once the sand settled. A dazed looking blond man in loose clothing sat in front of the gates, looking around, as if wondering 'How on earth did I get here?' And he probably was.

"Temari?" the man said.

"Mariku?" Temari asked.

"Hi."

"...I thought you were straight!"

"I _do_ like guys," this 'Mariku' said. Jiraiya frowned. That wasn't what 'straight' meant. Straight guys like _girls_.

"Then why were you peeking in the _girls_ side?"

"I wasn't. Honestly," the young man said. "I had finished a mission and was sleeping with my eyes open on the benches to the side because Maruko's newest scent is a bit flammable so we have to stay out of the house until it airs out and then there was a lot of sand and somehow I am here. How did I get here?""

"Honestly, Mariku, are you clueless? That's _outside_ the hotsprings, not inside. Come on. Shika-kun, this is Mariku, my student. Who's a bit older than me. But that's not what matters. What are we even doing, let's go inside."

"Temari." Jiraiya jumped as a wave of sand poured over the city and three people jumped down. The sand resettled itself back into the earth. "What's to go inside? You destroyed half of the bathhouse," a red haired boy said.

"Jiraiya..." Tsunade said in a scary voice. "Where aaaareee yooou?"

Jiraiya backed away.

"FOUND YOU, YOU PERVERTED IDIOT!" Tsunade screeched once she spotted him. She decked him and he flew forty feet away into another building, breaking yet another wall. Gaara sighed. The money! He was _not_ going to pay for this.

"Hey, you!" a bystander shouted. "You destroyed the neighborhood!"

"Who's going to pay for the damages?"

"My house!"

Gaara groaned. Craaaaaap. He was going to kill someone. Preferably Temari.

"Ah...haha," Temari said nervously. "Sorry, 'bout this, Gaara."

"I'll forgive you if you pay for this."

"What? I don't have the money."

"Then too bad."

"But, you're the person who pays me! You have my money anyway! Why can't you pay?"

"You caused all the damages."

"No, that pervert did!"

"Then all is solved," Tsunade said. "The pervert pays."

"Is he still alive?" Sakura wondered, eyeing the body that was still in the building.

"Probably," Tsunade said, tying the unconscious Sannin. "Now let's run before they pin the blame on us kages. We're the ones with an actual name to uphold."

"Right," Gaara said as they left the scene of the crime.

* * *

**_Author's Note_**

_Okay, this chapter is lacking any humor and point. This seriously irritates me, since I think I am starting to feel the effects of a writer's block. Gasp. Oh no! This can't be happening to me! Aaaaah! My god, this seriously sucks. It's just for this part of the fiction that i'm having the problems. I can't think of anything interesting to happen for the chuunin exams (yet. something will happen, but not at the beginning...) I think I'm just having problems going from leaving Hogwarts to first-day-back-in-the-Sand. Urgh...I just need a few ideas for throwaway characters. Kinda like the Sound nin. Useful only for giving others a fight, and then dying off or something. I am currently out of ideas for things to happen and it's barely a fourth of the length all of the other chapters. Also, I kinda had to add Jiraiya in here. Also for future use. _

* * *

**Later**

"Sooo, Gaara-sama," Mariku said. "Finally back. I hadn't seen you since in the summer when you uh...died? And then you woke up. Of course, dead people often sit up straight, so I must ask you: are you alive?"

"Mariku...shut up."

"Sir, yes sir!" Mariku said with a salute.

"Sakura-san, Hokage-sama, this is Mariku, Kankurou's apprentice. She's a special jounin who specializes in poison. She and her brother, who is not a shinobi, both also supply me with equipment, which includes the basics, custom weapons, and specially-made clothes."

"The sticks and books Gaara-sama sent back to us were especially helpful," Mariku said to them cheerfully.

"Sticks and books?" Shikamaru repeated.

"Yes. He has sent us back sticks. At first, all they did was make sparks, and then he sent back an entire self-translated book for us to use and we started doing these strange 'jutsus'. Called spelling."

"Magic," Gaara correct. "Magic spells."

"Right," Mariku said sarcastically. "Then again... my brother and I _did _manage to pull a rabbit out of the hat...hm..."

"You translated an entire spell book?" Sakura asked Gaara.

"Several. I told you some time before, I have a _lot_ of time on my hands," Gaara said.

Mariku grinned in excitement. With all of these new spells, their dreams were coming to life! She and her twin were getting closer.

"We already have new weapons of completely new caliber," she said ecstatically. 'Just wait 'til you see them! I have new metal gauntlets with strange protection on them. Completely impenetrable! But they also blow up on impact, but we're working on it... We also have something weird that we don't know what it does yet, but we do know it can change shape. Just not sure how it does though. And exploding shuriken and kunai! We also made another fan for Temari-san. A small gift. Not as durable, but much easier to control. And—"

"Mariku-san, if we let you finish listing your inventory, then we'll be stuck here all day long," Gaara said impatiently. "Naruto and Mikoto should be finished registering already if Mikoto hasn't gone off on yet another adventure. She's too much like you."

"I'd say, she's just enough, really," Mariku insisted, continuing forward with the others. "You can't _ever_ be too much like me, you know!"

Temari laughed, shaking her head. "Ah, and I suppose that if all girls turned into guys, you'll be in heaven."

"Ah, yes, me and a city of men. That's the advantages of living in a shinobi village, you know?" Mariku said in a dazed, wistful voice. "That's why I moved here in the first place actually. Guys...really really really hot guys who aren't all out of shape... Mm..." Mariku's eyes went glazed over as she continued to daydream. Tsunade, Sakura, and Gaara sweatdropped and backed away.

"Mariku!" someone shouted.

"Ah, that would be Maruko," Mariku said, snapping out of her daydreams back to the present.

"Wow, that's your sister?" Sakura said as Naruto, Mikoto, and a girl with long blond hair approached them.

Shikamaru made a face. That girl... something was off. Not quite right. Not quite a girl. Wait, no, she was definitely probably a girl. Just a girl with 'essence of boy'.

"Mikoto? Yeah, how'd you know?" Mariku asked. "We look nothing alike. Her hair's all red. We have no idea where it came from though..."

"Um...no, I already know who she is. I was talking about the other girl."

"_The blond one in orange_?" Mariku shouted, looking shocked. "No! I don't know him! I'm sorry... _her_? Honestly, we're both blonds, but I am sooo not related to that guy. Girl. Whoa."

"No, that's my friend Naruto," Sakura said, sweatdropping. "I was talking about the girl with long hair, walking behind them... You know, the one without the hitai-ate?"

Neither of the two younger shinobi in front had long hair, and they were running ahead. Gaara didn't say anything. His head was bent forward, covered by his hand. He was either silently groaning with a headache from his companions' stupidity or hiding a small smirk. Mariku frowned.

"When you say...long hair...walking behind them...and no hitai-ate, you wouldn't be talking about Maruko, would you?"

"Um...yes, if that's her name," Sakura said.

"That... is my brother."

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS PLACE?" Jiraiya cried.

"Where'd you come from?" Tsunade said, quite sure that she had tied him and left him for the crowds before leaving. Jiraiya ignored her, continuing to rant.

"MY GODS, A SHINOBI VILLAGE WHERE THE GUY TWIN LOOKS LIKE A GIRL AND THE GIRL LIKE A GUY!" he raved. "This—this is insane! It's crazy! It's abnormal! How come this 'Maruko' is sooo much hotter than his own sister? And I'm a man! I...I can't stand this...!"

Mariku scowled. "Who's hotter than who...?" she repeated, a glint in her eyes.

"You are very beautiful in a tomboyish way," Jiraiya whimpered.

Sakura sighed. Mariku wasn't too bad off. She could go both ways, just looking like a very feminine guy or a tomboy girl. "It's true," she laughed.

"So, sister," Maruko said, flipping HIS long, braided hair. "You're back."

"I'm hotter than you," the GIRL twin muttered.

"...Excuse me?"

"Naruto, what's wrong with you?"

"M-Maruko _kissed_ me."

"Hey, you _liked_ it."

"And then I found out you were a guy!"

"And you didn't notice before?"

"What were you kissing Maruko for Naruto!" Sakura demanded, grabbing her friend by the neck. Now, two years ago, this wouldn't have matter. Naruto might have choked, but he wouldn't die. Now, he saw spots. Pretty colors...

"I couldn't help it," Naruto protested. I finished registering, Maruko got this funny evil look in her—HIS! _His _eyes! And then he leaned forward and kissed me!"

Maruko, Mikoto, and Mariku laughed. Everyone else turned their attention to Maruko, obviously awaiting his explanation.

"The cameras. I take pictures of people's reaction when they find out I'm a guy," Maruko shrugged with a smirk growing on his face. It got bigger...and bigger...and bigger, until it finally turned into a big grin and a laugh.

"Maruko keeps a scrapbook of how new people react to him," Mikoto explained. "Mariku does the same. They started it just a few months ago and are trying to find out whose victims get more freaked out. Maruko's winning by, like, forty people."

"Forty?" Gaara repeated. "I am glad you did not start when I had first met you."

"Oh believe me," Mariku said. "We were definitely thinking about it, when you had first came to the village."

"And then we heard about all the people you killed before, and decided 'Nah, better not risk it'," Maruko added.

"You guys are...so weird..." Naruto groaned. He shuddered at the memory. Two consecutive kisses with GUYS! Oh no! That was it. Naruto was just cursed. Well, at least this guy _looks_ like a girl... But...that made it even weirder!

"That's alright, Naruto," Sakura joked, patting the poor, despondent boy on the back. "You might be scarred for life, but we'll still laugh at you like always!"

"You're so mean, Sakura..." Naruto whined.

Gaara sighed. "Alright, now that the deadline's up, I have to go through all of the applications by tomorrow morning."

"Oh come on," Mikoto complained. "You just got here!"

"Yeah, and Ino gave me a mission!" Naruto said.

"I could care less, I suppose."

"Please, Gaara?" Sakura said. "Last time we came here, it wasn't very fun..."

"Let's go," Gaara said.

"Yay! The Kazekage himself is taking us shopping!" Mikoto said, jumping up and down.

"And people say I'm irresponsible," Tsunade said.

"Well, you did almost completely use up the Konoha treasury," Sakura said.

"There was still some money left," Tsunade protested. "Anyway, I suppose the kage's meeting can wait. This is a once in a lifetime chance, after all."

"What do you mean?"

"It's not everyday a scary guy like you gets escorted by three and a half young ladies," she said with a wink. Half? Oh, she meant Maruko... He'd rather spend the day without anyone. Except maybe Sakura.

Gaara shook his head free of the thoughts. Well, this was the perfect time to...how did Temari put it again? To make amends. Yup. Temari always told him, he never really 'properly apologized' to them for nearly destroying Konoha. But then again, he _did_ save their sorry selves when they fought the Sound Four and Kimimaro. Wasn't that 'sorry' enough? Honestly, Temari just didn't get it. He practically already said it!

"Whatever," he said.

"Alright!" Naruto grinned. "Ino said if we got good enough kimonos for everyone, she'll fix Lee!"

"Fix him...?" Gaara asked.

"As in pretty him up!" Sakura said gleefully. "I really wonder what she could actually do with him though..."

Gaara shuddered at the thought of a mix of Lee and Sasuke. Gods no... Even if she could possibly fix his face, his attitude was irreparable. Too much exposure to Gai, probably.

He shrugged. "I also have a list from Kankurou. He's running out of makeup," Gaara said. "And he also needs a few pieces from your shop," he said to Maruko.

"Puppet parts? I thought Kuroari and the others were fine," Maruko said.

"They broke?" Naruto asked.

"When he went after Sasori and Deidara and me, he got beat up and his puppets broke," Gaara explained. "So once I got back, Kankurou and I put them back together. Actually, I did it. But we still ended up with extra pieces that we didn't know what to do with." (2)

"Oh, cool," Sakura said. "You actually assembled it without a manual or anything?"

"They don't come with manuals."

"Wow, you're pretty good with your hands then."

"Sand."

"Same difference," Sakura laughed, flipping her hair. It seemed she was keeping it short. Personally, he liked it longer. And then she could tie it back and look a bit more mature and... whatever.

"Where to first?" Naruto asked.

"Cosmetics store," Gaara said.

"Kankurou goes to a cosmetics store and he still says it's not makeup?" Shikamaru asked.

"Yes..."

"He's in denial," Temari said, shaking her head sadly.

Naruto gasped when he entered the first stop. This...this wasn't just _any_ cosmetics store. This was some sort of merchant-gone-mad designed store! Half of it was filled with light, bright, neon pink colors. The other half was dark and...just plain weird. "What is this junk?" Naruto asked them, leaning close to a row of black shades.

Shikamaru looked at the labels Naruto was reading. "Hm...there's black, dark black, cosmic black, dark hole black, coal black...hell, this place is crazy. They're all the same!" he said. The owner of the shop raised an eyebrow.

"Ignore them, sir," Gaara ordered. The man's eyes widened. Kazekage!

"Ah, Kazekage-sama, to what do I owe the pleasure of having you today? You must be wanting to hide the circles around your eyes," he said, excited by the thought that the Kazekage himself had chosen this very store to shop for makeup.

"No, not really," Gaara said expressionlessly. Mikoto, Temari, and Sakura were cracking up behind the counter. "My brother Kankurou. You know him."

"Ah yes, my biggest customer," the man said.

"He made an order a week or two ago. Has it come in?" Gaara asked.

"Ah, yes, the Kabuki Face Paint Set Version 9.0! Complete with eight shades of black, four shades of white, two shades of purple, the primary and basic colors, all of the colors of the rainbow, and everything in between!" the man said cheerfully.

"Rainbow...?" Sakura repeated. Temari snorted.

"How much?" Gaara asked.

"Hey!" Naruto said. "I want this one!" He pointed at two colors. Pasty White and Coal Black.

"Don't tell me you're getting into this business too, Naruto," Sakura moaned.

He grinned. "Hehehe...this is going to be awesome..." he said deviously. It seemed Naruto didn't hear her. She hit him in the head, knocking in into the ground and causing a crack.

"Sixty percent off if you wear this," the owner of the store said, holding up a flyer. SABURO'S FACEPAINT AND COSMETICS STORE.

"On what?" Gaara asked him, looking a bit confused. What, did the man just expect him to staple a flyer onto his forehead or something?

"I don't know, your gourd or something."

"My gourd is made of sand."

"Um...I know that, sir."

"Do I look like a walking advertisement to you?"

"No...but you _could_."

"I'll do it!" Naruto said, jumping up and down. Sakura laughed. Gaara shook his head and took the paper, pinning it onto his gourd. Why the hell was he doing this anyway? Because with all of the bills that the Makotos had sent to him, he was down to only half of what he had before? Yes. Probably yes. Not because of Sakura or anything. He just didn't like being second richest in the Wind Country. Naruto bought his own kabuki makeup and left with the others.

"Our place next!" Maruko said enthusiastically as his sister pumped her fists in the air. They ran through a door (literally), jumped behind the cash register, and put on their best merchant face. "Welcome!"

Gaara frowned. "You guys are idiots."

"What would you like to purchase today?" Mariku asked enthusiastically, overlooking Gaara's previous comment. "Puppet parts, poison, or other equipment?"

"Daft. That's what you guys are. Daft," he said, shaking his head. Temari grinned. "Kankurou wants the things listed here."

Mariku took the paper. "...Ah, a bird type puppet, eh? These parts he is requesting aren't very specific. What type is puppet does he want? There are several types of bird puppet parts that he could have. There's the fighter, an information gatherer, a defender, capture, and stealth. Of course, none manually made are exactly alike, but they often share similar properties. There are seven types of talons, three main bodies, five kinds of wings, an assortment of 'skin', sometimes eyes, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Do you know what this means, Kazekage-sama?" Mariku asked him.

"No."

"You're going to make us filthy rich!" Maruko crowed.

_Sabaku Kyuu!_ Sand wrapped itself around the twins.

"Yikes!" Mariku yelped. "A joke, a joke! We know you helped pay the bills for damage, Kazekage-sama! I wasn't going to charge you! Much. Advertise for _our_ store and it's free!" Sakura laughed. She held up a hand-drawn sign of a two puppets fighting each other, one emitting smog from its mouth and another wielding strange weapons.

"Stick figures," Gaara muttered, looking at the crayon-colored images.

"Well what do you expect, I drew it in five seconds. That makes it quite the masterpiece if you ask me. Or some sort of record," she grinned. "Okay, you leave on the nineth, right? I'll have everything assembled by then. Kankurou probably wants to try putting it together himself, but we all know how badly that would go. Now, let's go to the next stop!"

"Whatever, I'm staying!" Maruko announced, his eyes bright with glee. He clapped his hands together. Another masterpiece in making! He was a truly devoted salesmen. After all, devoted and obsessed... they're almost the same thing, right? "Out, out, out," he said. "I can't work with distractions. Yes, you too, sisters. Out!"

And the Kazekage was shoved out of the shop. Recovering his dignity, he stood up, but didn't bother to brush the sand of his clothes, as they were already getting rid of themselves.

"Your brother is mad," Gaara said.

"I know," Maruko said. "Sometimes, he switches personalities like that. What next?"

"Oh, Ino and the others want kimonos!" Naruto said.

"Oooh, shopping for kimono! I want to too!" Mikoto said.

Gaara groaned inside. It seemed that today, he wasn't a Kazekage. He was a freaking escort and a living, breathing wallet! "I don't want to," he said in a low voice. No one heard him, as he wasn't speaking very loudly.

"Let's go!" Sakura said. Gaara sighed and followed after her.

"What time is it, anyway?" he asked Mikoto.

"Um...six or seven," she answered. "Why?"

"I have Kages-only meeting at nine," Gaara said. Mikoto opened her mouth. "You're not invited," he said sternly. "Find something to amuse yourselves and keep Sakura company. And Naruto. And Temari. And her boyfriend. And...anyone else who is not a kage but is tempted to latch on to me and follow me into the meeting."

"Aw..."

* * *

**_Author's Note_**

_(bows on the ground) Please forgive my lowly soul for this junk! I've been working on this for days in almost all of my spare time! ANd it was horrible! A nightmare! I couldn't think of anything fo rhtem to do and when i did finally think up of something, it was hard transitioning it from one situation to another. Sooo... Gaara is now half butler half human wallet. Odd, yes? But I suppose that you may notice that whenever Gaara wants to refuse them, Sakura will say something and he'll miraculously change his mind and agree with them. _

_Alright, finally done. I need an idea for weapons. Please no swords. And if you are going to suggest a sword, maybe one that changes length or something. Something kinda unique, you know? Anyway, I'm trying to think up of something new as weapons the shinobi can fight with. I already have a basic idea of what kind of weapons they could use and best suits them, but for some characters, I am lacking clear thoughts. Suggestions will help. I might not use them all or at all, but it'll help me think. Pleeeaaaasse?_

_Mariku: Japanese version of the name "Malik", which is probably a name for a guy...but oh well. Means either king or queen (in this case, King, since it ends in a U and not an A.)  
Maruko: Japanese version of the name "Marco", definitely a name for a guy, but a bit plain compared to Malik. Means warrior, the opposite of what he is. _

_Mariku is actually the girl twin. She dresses like the guy. A feminine guy. Likes experimenting techniques, even if it is in the middle of battle. As I am typing this, it reminds me of Naruto. Maruko is her boy counterpart. A guy who looks like a girl. Like Naruto in Sexy no Jutsu form. He's lazy, always sleepy, and likes to sleep. And he also likes to sunbathe. While he sleeps. I wanted to make them in their early twenties, but then I realized it would badly match them, since Kankurou and Temari were only supposed to be a little younger. Making them twenty would be like a five year difference. No. So now, they must be seventeen. Like all other characters... Mariku is a special jounin. What's so special about her? Uh...you'll find out. Maruko is not even a ninja. He's more like a merchant. Whom Gaara often finds himself giving death threats to help out on missions, since he has no life, attracts no customers, and makes no effort to do things. He's kinda like Shikamaru. Only not smart. A lazy bum.  
Mariku and Maruko sell things... mostly shinobi equipment, and a few custom items. They also supply Kankurou with the poison for his puppets, but they're working on a new product that's easier to make. Because, first of all, it has to take a lot of effort to make some kind of poisonous smoke. Something Maruko does not have. So, what's small, possible poisonous, and easy to bottle up? You'll see. In the chuunin exams._

_Mikoto is the youngest. She basically gets things from her older brother and sister. She's unoriginal._

_Anyway, the two twins are actually sort of a inner joke between me and... another person who might not even be reading these, but what the hey, who cares? When I was thinking those bishounen characters. No, Maruko and Mariku are not homosexual, although I have nothing personal against gay people (correction: yes, I do. WHAT IS IT THAT HOMOSEXUALS HAVE THAT I DON'T! j/k, haha) Just being random. Anyway. there is always a character in an anime that looks the opposite sex. Haku (Naruto!), Amano Makoto (W Juliet), Violet (Mars), etc. I'm just having fun confusing people, and so are the Makoto Twins! They switch places randomly when Mariku uses genjutsu and stuff. _

* * *

(1) I know, I know, Mikoto sounds like a Gaara wannabe, but that's how I thought up her character. I was just thinking all Egyptian style like, but only no gold. More like cotton. The thing is, the Egyptians wore thick eyeliner to help block the sun. I'm not sure how it would really work unless you stick it in your eye, but yeah... Anyway, I was thinking about this character, but once I started typing it and reading it over, I'm like, what the hooter? She's a Gaara! Weird, I know...

(2) Yeah, that happens to me a lot. Like when I put my desk together... I had something that must have been an extra piece of drawer. And when I was playing with Legos... Half the pieces weren't used. My puzzles... Odd. Then again, I force the pieces together so the pictures wrong anyway... Kinda sad.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The Start of the Chuunin Exams 

Gaara sighed, approaching the Formal Dress and Apparel store with increasing agitation.

"Gaara?" Sakura asked, noticing his anxiety. "Is something wrong?"

He gritted his teeth, hating to share this information. But if he didn't tell her, then Mikoto would, and she would probably end up weaving a twisted tale of his story. "This woman...the one who owns the store... She's very..."

"Friendly," Mikoto stated. "_Really_ friendly."

"I think that she thinks she's our mother," Temari muttered.

"How?" Shikamaru asked.

"You'll see..."

"GAARA-KUN! TEMARI-SAN!" a very large woman cried running at the group. She grinned and hugged Gaara in a motherly way—tight enough to kill. Luckily, his sand formed a shield and the woman ended up hugging a great sphere of sand. Nevertheless, she remained undismayed by this and smiled.

"It's been so long since you came here to be fitted!" she said.

"Fitted?" Sakura repeated.

"The Kazekage's robes came in one size, so I got more," Gaara said.

"Oh, you have friends now! You were always such a shy boy!"

"Who said that?"

She didn't seem to hear him. "Come in, children, come in!" she said. "My, seven of you in all. Are you all going to be fitted into clothes? What type would you like, modern sand cloaks? Formal wear? Casual?"

"Kimonos," Gaara answered as she pulled them into the shop. "For an upcoming festival in Konoha."

"Oh, yes, I've heard about it before," the woman said. "It's supposed to be a grand celebration with all sort of activities. Konoha isn't the only village who celebrates it, you know. All of the villages that the Kyuubi attacked have it, mourning for the dead and celebrating that _thing's_ death." Naruto looked uncomfortable. "Oh, are you thirsty, dear? By the way, my name is Yoshiko. Hm, you haven't grown much at all, Gaara-kun."

"Well if I did grow in a noticeable manner, I would be worried, as it has only been about three months since I left," Gaara said as the woman looked through several sheaves of paper.

"Ah hah, here are your measurements. Oh, I have robes that are just perfect for you!" She ran into the back and back out with the speed of a shinobi. She carried a black outfit out from the back. Black jacket, black pants, black... These were clothes for Sasuke.

"Oh, too black?" she asked. "Well take it anyway, black is an outfit for all occasions! Now try this on!" She pushed a dark red cloth onto his arms and shoved him into the dressing room, gourd and all, with amazing strength. Was this woman Tsunade in disguise or something?

Gaara slipped off the gourd and changed outfits. "You know," he said through the door. "I'm not paying for anything I don't need."

"That's nice dear," the woman said absent-mindedly. "Oh, this would look good on you. What are your names again?"

"I am Uzumaki Naruto."

"My name's Haruno Sakura."

"Aw, what nice names," she said. "Now, try this and this on. Oh, Temari, would you also like some outfits? My, you're getting bigger. You're becoming a full grown woman _all around_. And who are you?"

" Nara Shikamaru."

"He's my boyfriend."

"Ah, another? Good, I didn't like the look of your old one."

"You had another boyfriend?"

"Yoshiko-san, he wasn't my boyfriend. That was Kankurou. Without any makeup..." The girl shuddered at the thought of dating him. Ew! Incest!

"Ah, well then, now I understand why he wears so much makeup, the poor boy..." Temari and the others laughed. Gaara opened the door.

"Nice," Temari said. Shikamaru shrugged.

"Where's Sakura?" Gaara asked. "And Naruto." And the Makoto sisters were gone too.

"They're all changing," Temari said.

"The Makotos too? I'm not paying for them," Gaara said.

"I saw that coming," Shikamaru said.

"Ah!" Mikoto squealed, jumping out of a door in a purple yukata. "I LOOK SO CUTE! And—Mariku...you look like a _girl_." Mariku struck a pose.

"Yeah, I'm hot, aren't I?" she asked. _'Hotter than Maruko...'_

Gaara sighed. He turned around, hearing yet another door open behind him and frowned. "... Orange, Naruto?"

"I know," he said. "You like it?"

"No."

"Oh well, I do. I want this one! Oh are you buying that red one?"

"No."

"Oh, Haruno-san, that looks adorable on you!" Yoshiko said. Gaara turned around and...

"Pink on pink?" he asked. It was the first thing he thought and the only thing he was able to say. Wait, that sounded insulting.

"Gaara likes it!" Naruto said.

"No I don't," he said defiantly, just for the sake of an argument. He immediately wished he hadn't said a thing. Urgh... open mouth, insert foot.

"You don't like it?" Sakura asked him.

"I think it looks fine," Mariku said, giving her a thumbs up.

"Yeah," Gaara said bluntly.

"Yes you don't like it or yes it looks fine?" Sakura asked, looking down nervously. Well, it was a bit low and revealing. And it wasn't even a kimono! It was too informal. And showed too much skin. And all party-like, and not for a festival! She had chosen the exact wrong outfit. Right in front of the Kazekage, how embarrassing!

"It's _fine_," Gaara said angrily. Sakura didn't look so reassured.

"I don't know, I guess I'll just look at some others," Sakura said, going back in the changing room to switch back to her other clothes. Gaara sighed. He found himself doing that a lot lately.

"I think that outfit looked fine, Gaara," Temari said.

"Good for you," he said, really annoyed.

"...Oh yeah, thanks," Naruto said to no one in particular. Huh? Vikki was tugging on his pants as he rummaged through his kunai pouch and took out several bent up photos. The occupants inside looked as irritated as Gaara was now. They avoided the creases in the picture and tried to look their best. "Yoshiko, I also have to get some outfits for these people."

She looked down at the pictures that Naruto handed to her. "Oh my, they move!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, isn't that awesome?"

"It's unnatural," she said. "Then again, we live in a world where shinobi can do such things."

Gaara wanted to correct her. They were wizards that had invented animated photos. Of course, 'wizards' didn't exist here in this world. Just like how shinobi didn't exist in their world. Sakura began looking through the other racks, with Vikki at her ankles.

"Maybe this one," Sakura said, pulling out a darker red kimono. It looked nice for autumn, with brown, orange, yellow and some red leaf patterns on it, but it wasn't much in comparison to the pink one she had tried on earlier. Then again, it cost a lot less too. Sakura sighed silently. She had liked it too.

* * *

"GAARA-KICHI, WE'RE GOING HOME NOW, BUH-BYE!" Mikoto shouted, waving as she ran out.

"Thank god..." he moaned silently as the two sisters outside downstairs left.

"Gaara-kichi...? Kawaii!" he heard Mariku say, as she followed after Mikoto. Gaara sighed. Great. Now Mikoto's nickname for him was going to spread, with Mariku's big mouth.

"Aspirin now!" he said to Baki.

"We already have it," he said smugly, holding out a cup and several pills. "Long day?"

"A day with Mikoto..."

"I feel for you..."

Shikamaru, Temari, Naruto, Sakura, and Vikki—who were all sitting on the floor behind Gaara at his desk—laughed. Yes...the fox laughed. But it was more like a bark anyway, and no one knew for sure it foxes really barked or not.

"This happens a lot," Temari told them. "Baki has practically become Gaara's servant, giving him these things every day when Mikoto comes over. Kankurou and I've been trying to get him to where those suits, but he'll never comply..."

"Too tiresome..." Gaara muttered, ignoring their conversation.

"You're starting to sound like Shikamaru," Temari commented.

"What's wrong with that?" the lazy genius muttered. "So troublesome..."

"By the way," Baki said, "your owl keeps coming back to the Sand. Why do you keep on sending him back?"

"He has an owl?" Sakura asked.

"I have an owl?"

"Yes..." Baki said. "You do."

"When did you get one?"

"Our hawks are the fastest in the countries, but they have problems sending messages all the way to the world you go to," Baki said. "We explained it to Tsunade, who told us that owls are more convenient to sending you the damage reports, so your assistant decided to buy you a barn owl as a gift."

"A _barn_ owl."

"Yes."

"Who on earth names these things?" Gaara asked. This owl didn't live in a barn. And it wasn't a barn either.

"Do you expect me to answer that, or is it a rhetorical question?"

"Don't bother answering questions you don't know, Baki," Gaara said. "Very well, what's its name?"

"We don't know. We thought that since it was yours, you should name it," Baki said. "I trained it. You might like him." He took out a whistle. "Your owl comes automatically when you blow it."

"Okay," Gaara said, taking the whistle.

"...Aren't you going to blow it?" Temari asked him expectantly.

"No, I'll just wait for him to come himself. I'll look like some sort of psychotic soccer coach blowing it," he said stubbornly, crossing his arms in a very Gaara-like manner.

"You'll never look like a soccer coach," Naruto said. "You scare the crap out of kids."

Sakura sighed. Gaara was so stubborn! She never saw this side of him before. She took Gaara's whistle and blew loudly. Everyone in the room flinched, except for Gaara who, to his dislike, had an overprotective yet bloodthirsty demon controlling the sand. He shook his head, getting rid of the tiny remains of sand in his ear. Damn Shukaku...he probably did that on purpose...

An owl flew in. Gaara recognized it from one of the many owls that brought him the damage reports every day. Oh, so _that_ one was his.

"Hey..." Naruto said. "Is it me, or does that owl look like Gaara?"

"Do I look like I have feathers, Naruto?" Gaara already had a Gaara-girl twin around. How on earth did _this _thing look like _him_?

"No, seriously," Naruto said. "It's got a white feathery face—"

"I don't have feathers and I'm not white."

"—and really really dark eyes. Gaara's got skin that looks paler because he has really really dark things _around_ his eyes."

"You know, you're right," Shikamaru said, looking thoughtful. Whoa! He looked thoughtful! "I didn't spot that." Whoa! He didn't spot that!

"Let's name him Gaara-kichi!" Temari joked.

"You do that and I will murder you," Gaara muttered.

"You haven't really killed anyone for no reason for a while, but I'll take your word for it," Temari said.

"So what's his name?" Sakura asked him.

"Uh...Yash—Yaksa..." Gaara said.

"Yaksa?" Temari repeated. "That's a funny name. I like it."

"Whose name is 'Yaksa'?" a voice asked from behind Baki. Gaara turned around to see who it was who said that. Oh, it was that large breasted woman.

"The owl's," Gaara said. "You're late, Hokage-sama. The meeting was supposed to have taken place...several hours ago."

"Oh really?" Tsunade asked. "What time is it?"

"Almost midnight."

"Oh...oops. Well I went back to the casino once you were gone. I'm sorry, I lost track of time there."

"I find it hard to believe that you didn't know what time it was when you left. It's completely dark outside."

"Well I'm a tad bit tipsy, so if I miss something, don't blame me," she said with a smile. Was that a joke? She was a bit red and was leaning on Baki's back. He looked uncomfortable. It was probably the boobs...

"Well, I'll be going," Baki said quickly, pulling away from the woman and leaving the room as fast as possible.

"So..." Tsunade said, now on her knees leaning on Gaara's desk. "What are you doing?"

"Looking over applications that _we _are supposed to be checking."

"Oh yeah...the first test..." she said drunkenly. Good god, she really was drunk.

"Test? What test?" Naruto asked, panicked. He took a test without knowing it? Oh no!

"Look, Hokage-sama," Gaara said impatiently. "If you're so drunk you're going to pass out on the floor, please do so now where you can get into a bed and not hinder me in my work."

"_Okay_," Tsunade said huffily. "Fine, I _will_." She spun around quickly (which was rather dangerous for a drunk), took two steps, tripped and fell on the floor. She didn't get up.

"..." Gaara leaned forward in his chair toward his desk too look at her.

"She's unconscious..." Naruto said.

"Mendokusei..."

"I wonder," Gaara said, "if she knew I was being sarcastic."

"Well, it _is_ a bit hard to tell whether you're serious or not," Temari said, prodding the sleeping woman's leg. "Remember when you threatened Kankurou with death when you said that you wanted decaf but you were joking? That idiot brother ran halfway across the Wind Country 'til you dragged him back and told him you were just playing. I swear..." She shook her head and they all laughed. Even Gaara smiled. and then he remembered his dignity and it disappeared.

"So..." Shikamaru said. "What do we do with the body?"

"Leave it," Naruto suggested.

"And trip over it in the night?" Gaara asked. "I think not. Baki!"

"Yes sir?"

"Take Tsunade-sama and give her to Jiraiya-sama," Gaara said.

"You sure you want to do that?" Sakura asked as Baki struggled to carry the woman away. Yosh, what did she load in those things? Her boobs! They were, like, made of lead!

"Better him than me," Gaara shrugged . "Judging from the smell, she's had one of our stronger drinks. I don't want to be there with her hangover and all."

"How do you know which drink she had?" she asked with a grin.

"Believe me, no one in Sunagakure will forget what happened when they gave me a drink and I passed out," Gaara muttered, remembering the people's reaction to him the next day. He remembered it all to well. It was right after second time he had made amends too.

"So what's the point of this all?" Sakura asked, standing up and looking over Gaara's shoulder.

"I'm looking for specific answers on the applications," Gaara said. "Mikoto probably already knew exactly what to put on here. That girl's always looking through confidential files. I'm not surprised she knew."

"Oh, can I help?" Sakura asked.

Gaara sighed and eyed the stack of papers. At least seventy-five sheets of applications that were needed to be looked over by seven o clock the next morning. Yeah, he wasn't going to turn down any help. "If you want."

"I want to see too!" Naruto said.

"No," Gaara said bluntly.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Private genin information. It'll give you too much of an advantage over others in combat."

"Hah! You let it leak! We're going to fight!" Naruto said triumphantly.

"Naruto, you are an idiot," Gaara said.

Sakura smiled. "All chuunin exams involve physical combat, Naruto. Gaara didn't give anything away that all genins were not allowed to know."

"You're so funny," Temari said, patting the sad boy on the head like a dog. Vikki grinned and bit his ankle. Naruto kicked him and the fox jumped out of the way. Gaara looked at the applications. "These are the types of things that a student should have on their sheet," he said, handing Sakura Mikoto's paper. (--word-- is a cross out)

**Name**: Makoto -- Mikoto-- Yuuka  
**Village**: Akasuna  
**Country**: Wind  
**Age**: 12  
**DOB**: May 25  
**Sex**: Female  
**Hair**: red  
**Eyes**: green insert box and fingerprint here  
**Distinguishing Characteristics**:  
--Panda-shaped birthmark on my-- lots of eyeliner  
one sharp tooth on my right (a FANG! awesome!)  
burn scar on elbow  
**Bloodline Limit/Special Abilities?** I can see things  
**Instructor**: Sabaku Gaara/Sabaku Kankurou/Mikoto Mariku  
**Weapons**: normal shinobi gear and stuff (you'll see!)  
**Jutsu**: basic jutsus like henge and kawarimi and bunshin and stuff (EVERYONE knows that stuff!)  
**Other**: I like sushi and messing with these new things called 'magic' with Mariku and Maruko

"The answers to certain questions should be vague..." Gaara said in a low voice so only Sakura could hear. Naruto leaned in to hear what he was saying but Vikki attacked him. ("Argh, stupid fox!") "Oh, and if you notice any other genins writing down false names, tell me."

"Smart," Sakura said. "Oh, I meant the answers they're supposed to give. Not the fake identities."

Gaara's sand brought in a rolling chair from another room (with cushions!) and they began to work and look through applications. It wasn't hard work, but it was rather boring. Naruto, Temari, and Shikamaru had a drinking contest. Each passed out (in that order) and Vikki found himself sleeping under Naruto's foot, where it would later wake up finding horrified, stuck with his scent. It was well past midnight when Sakura finally got near the bottom of her stack, where Naruto's application was.

**Name**: Uzumaki Naruto  
**Village**: Konoha  
**Country**: Fire  
**Age**: 14 (almost 15! hell yeah! --my birthday's on October 10!-- insert arrow pointing down at 'Date Of Birth')  
**DOB**: October 10 (XD awesome! just a few more days:)  
**Sex: **man  
**Hair**: --yellow-- BLOND  
**Eyes**: blue insert box and smeared fingerprint here  
**Distinguishing Characteristics**:  
six whiskers total  
--mark-- TATTOO on my stomach (swirly)  
scar above heart (left side of chest)  
--RAMEN!-- I have clean teeth  
**Bloodline Limit/Special Abilities? **I can eat a lot of ramen without getting sick!  
**Instructor**: Hatake Kakashi  
**Weapons**: shuriken  
**Jutsu**: SEXY NO JUTSU! HAHAHAHAHA  
**Other**: I like ramen! And Iruka-sensei! And eating ramen with Iruka-sensei! (really hate the three-minute wait though, it SUCKS!) and I'M GOING TO BE HOKAGE!

Sakura smiled. Gaara looked over and sighed. "He's so stupid that he actually passed. Are you done?"

"Almost. His was the last one, being the last person to register," Sakura said, yawning.

"I have a few more left, go to sleep," Gaara said.

"But you still have more work to do," Sakura said. "You have to go over the papers a second time to make sure these people are who they say they are, right?" Gaara sighed. Just thinking about the second part made him tired.

"Yes, but tired people make mistakes and if you accidentally make one, we may end up being attacked again or have intruders in the city," Gaara said. "I don't sleep, you do. Period. I have four hours and I'll get through this quicker. Everyone else is sleeping."

"I can still work. I've stayed up later on missions before."

Gaara frowned. If she didn't go to sleep, he might never get a chance to do what he was going to do. Sakura saw his expression and sighed.

"Alright, alright," she said. "Don't get mad. I'll go drag everyone into bed and go to sleep alright?"

"Don't bother," Gaara said. She jumped when a large amount of sand poured in through the window and pulled each one of them out into the hallway and into the many guest rooms he had in his office/home. "There." Sakura stretched and froze. "My foot's asleep!" she whispered biting her teeth. Stupid! In the kage's office too!

"Whatever. Run across the room and go ahead and sleep in my bed."

"But then where will you sleep?" she asked.

"If you hadn't heard me the first several times, I don't," Gaara said bluntly. Sakura grinned sheepishly. She had forgotten. He grabbed the armrest on her chair and pushed it across the room, where it slid across and ended up barely a foot away from the desk.

"Wow, you're stronger than you look," Sakura said, surprised. "I thought you were more of a ninjutsu type with your sand and all."

"After Rock Lee kicked me around, Sasuke stabbed me, and Naruto headbutted me in the chuunin exams, I realized that I should train a bit more in other things, namely taijutsu, and that I should be more active on my feet." (hence his tendency to jump onto sand rather than just left it pick him up and carry him around like when he first started fighting Deidara) Sakura smiled. "Now _sleep,_" he said firmly.

Sakura stood up on one leg and fell over on top of the bed that hadn't been slept on by its owner since it had been delivered to his office (although Mikoto herself had stayed in it on several occasions when he wasn't there).

It took him five minutes to finish looking through the rest of the work. Sakura had already fallen fast asleep on the bed across the room. Finally. Gaara took out a new sheet of paper and a pen and wrote a brief letter. He addressed it to Yoshiko and tied it onto Yaksa's leg.

"Send it to Yoshiko," he said, and the bird flew off. That being done, he stretched his arms in front of him, and sighed. Four hours to go and he had to match the finger prints with the registration forms. What fun. At least he had done what he had been planning to for some time now. Silently, he wondered why he didn't just sell his house and start pretty much living at the office, as he rarely ever returned to his own. In fact, he already did live there. Then again, Temari and Kankurou hated sleeping over all the time. He should go back. Maybe clean up. And bring clothes over back to the kage's office. Wait, stop daydreaming, back to work, he told himself. Thinking was the worst thing to do at night, as it often made him feel like sleeping. Hm, forty-nine registration forms to match up with passports. Sometimes, Gaara wished he had a life.

* * *

Sakura blinked sleepily as an owl flew into the room. She was in the most comfortable bed ever; warm and sleeping next to the window, she huggled (1) the pillow in her arms cozily. She opened one eye and spotted another pair of green eyes staring down at here. Was it just her, or did the Kazekage look rather amused...at her expense? Nah, it was just her imagination.

"Yeah...?"

"You...cuddle in your sleep," he said. Sakura looked down at the pillow in her arms and blushed.

"Well I'm a girl. All girls cuddle in their sleep," she said. Sakura laughed. "Yeah, I do. You wouldn't believe how much trouble I had when Tsunade first taught me how to fight."

Gaara shuddered at the thought of whatever poor person or pillow she must have destroyed. Preferably pillow. Hopefully pillow. He made a face.

"Yeah, there were feathers everywhere and my mom made me clean each and every one up," Sakura said, misinterpreting his frown. Gaara then vividly remembered him walking into Kankurou's room to wake him up only to find his older brother sleeping in a bed of puppet parts, snuggling random pieces in his sleep. It came to Gaara as a shock that Kankurou was not the only shinobi in the worlds who snuggled, cuddled, and/or huggled (1) things.

"Change your clothes, clean yourself, and eat something downstairs. This room has its own bathroom, so you don't need to share bathrooms with everyone else," Gaara said, grabbing his gourd and preparing to leave.

"Um..."

"Hn?"

"I, uh...didn't pack my clothes."

"Oh." Well, he was the only one to have actually packed, wasn't he? He and...Temari's boyfriend. Temari herself didn't really pack, but he ended up doing it for her anyway. And what did she expect him to do about it anyway? She couldn't go around wearing the Kazekage's clothes. Rumors would fly and he would be destroyed. Wait...he did have something she could use. Gaara opened the dressers. Sakura looked inside and choked.

"You have girl clothes?" she asked. (Gaara... is there something you want to tell us...?)

"While I was gone, Mikoto had taken the courtesy of changing my office into a house, as you can probably see. I now have a bed that I will never use, a dresser full of _her_ clothes, and a bathroom complete with a hairdryer, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and...girl supplies," Gaara said with distaste. Sakura laughed. He opened another drawer and shut it very quickly.

"What is it?" Sakura asked.

"Um...nothing much," Gaara said dismissively. "Just Mikoto's...undergarments." Sakura covered her mouth and giggled as Gaara turned away, heading out of the room, so she would avoid seeing his blush. She saw it anyway, so it was a wasted effort. He stopped by Yaksa, who was sitting on his desk with a letter. "She's a lot smaller than you, but her clothes are baggy enough anyway. Just pick something," he said as he opened the envelop addressed to him.

"Okay," Sakura said. "But what's that?" she asked.

Gaara skimmed through the letter. He scowled and crumpled it up. "It's nothing," he said, stuffing it into his pocket. He picked up his gourd (which now had three ads on it) and left . "You do... whatever it is that you girls do in the bathroom. You have thirty minutes until all genin applicants and chuunin judges are to report to the training grounds where everything will be taking place. As a kage, I, however, must leave now. It's almost seven."

"Bye," Sakura said to him as he left.

"..." He didn't even look back. "Bye."

Did he really say that or was she just hearing things? It was hard to tell with Gaara. Sakura stretched and looked at the clothes in Mikoto's drawer. She saw the girls underclothes and realized why Gaara was so surprised. Apparently, Mikoto wasn't the only one with extra clothes here. The Makoto sisters wore very lacy...underclothes. Sakura didn't want to think of Maruko in these things though. She picked a white shirt and black skirt. It looked nice and formal but...just not right. Expecially here in the desert. No skirts. Okay...Jeans! How on earth did Makoto get muggle attire? Sakura liked these. And spaghetti strap shirts! A dark mix of pink and brown. Kinda a muddy color that she didn't like, but it wasn't too bad. She changed into the newer clothes and frowned. Back in Yoshiko's shop, she wondered if Gaara really disliked it. He did try to take it back. Did he like it? Sakura blushed and shook her head. No! She wasn't interested in anyone right now, let alone a kage!

"Hey, Sakura!" Naruto said. "Hurry up and come downs—augh!"

"Get out you pervert, I'm changing!" Sakura said, slamming the door shut on Naruto's face.

* * *

Gaara was pissed. He rode the sand as it carried him to the training grounds. The caravan carrying the trading goods was due to leave that day at noon. He could probably catch up to it, but not if he had to attend to the Chuunin Exam preparations. For the average shinobi, it took three days to leave the borders of the Wind Country. But these people weren't trained as shinobi. They were common traders, who spent their lives bickering over prices with one another and traveling between cities. Like door-to-door salesmen who took it to the extreme to sell their goods. The Kadaj Caravan, who had the things that Gaara required—no, just wanted—would take an entire week to leave the country. And Gaara, _not_ being the everyday shinobi, could probably cross the deserts in two days max. After all, this was his territory.

So...he didn't need to leave now. In fact, he didn't need to leave at all. It was all just a desire. Not even mandatory. Why make an effort for something completely unnecessary? It would all be a waste of time...

"Kazekage-sama, you had no right to knock me out," he heard a voice said.

"Tsunade-sama, I never did such a thing," Gaara said. "You passed out on my floor and unfortunate Baki was forced to remove you from my office."

Jiraiya, who had been standing behind Tsunade, snickered.

"Shut up, Jiraiya," Tsunade said. Her headache was killing her! "Anyway, Gaara-sama, I suppose you've already finished the preparations while I was unable to do so?"

"Yes, I have," Gaara said. "Now all that remains to be done is for the forty-eight genins to arrive."

"Ah, and I must thank your assistant for the headache cure later."

"Baki?"

"No, the girl."

"Oh...Mikoto." Just how many people did Mikoto claim to be his assistant to?

"Yes, the cute one who, oddly enough, looks like you. How she can do two things like that is beyond me."

"It's the makeup," Gaara said. "And shut up, Tsunade-sama."

"How very polite of you," Tsunade said, snickering. "Oh well, I guess for you it's like having yet another sibling to boss around with. Tell me, just how many underlings do you have in your little fanclub clique?"

"Mikoto is the only one lacks the respect and fear, or sometimes even the unnatural admiration, for me that the others do. She _did_ also mention something about a fanclub, but I doubt the rumors are true." Yes, underground fanclubs were more of an Uchiha Sasuke thing."...If there is one, it probably formed after half of the Sand came after Naruto and his friends...rescued me," Gaara said. That event...it had been horrifying. And not because of Deidara.

"Oh, well what do you know?" Jiraiya said. "Here they come." He pointed at several genins arriving quickly. Not bad, for younger students. It looked like the messenger birds had sent out all of the acceptance and denial letters. They each gathered in front the kages and Jiraiya, bowing in a respectful manner. It felt rather strange for people just years younger than Gaara to show such respect. He liked that.

"And there's the stupid blond," Jiraiya said. "And...the youngest Makoto girl..." He shuddered at the memory of the twins.

"I take it that the thought of us still frightens you?" a voice said from behind him.

Jiraiya and Tsunade jumped. "Where did you come from?" Jiraiya demanded.

"That is for me to know and you to find you," Mariku said. "Someday. Like today!"

"Do you have something for me?" Gaara asked her.

"Yes," Mariku said, shifting a large bag on her shoulder and setting it on the ground. "Maruko is busying himself with his most recent projects. He's not saying anything and spent the whole night obsessing over his plans and working, but from the looks of it, your brother's newest puppets will be finished in four days, as Maruko is working very quickly."

"Puppets? Kankurou only asked for one."

"Don't worry, these two come as a surprise package together," Mariku said. Sometimes, it was rather convenient, as the Makoto twins always went the extra mile. However, other times it could be rather irritating, having to drag them back to present and keep themselves from working themselves to death. Or unconsciousness.

"Also," Mariku said, "I have a new item that we may be able to use in the future. I call it Oboro, or 'Hazy Moon'." She took out a white, silky piece of cloth with two small clip on the edge. Oh no, she was in salesperson-mode... "Its convenient and easy to use. I read something about it in the 'Magical Artifacts' book you lent me. An invisibility cloak, they call it in your 'wizard world'. In any case, this, as you can see, is not invisible. When you put it on your shoulders—" Mariku fastened the clip onto her shoulders "—is it _still_ not invisible."

"..." Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Gaara stared at her.

"And the point of showing me this is...?" Gaara asked.

"Na-ah-aaah! You're rushing! Good things come to those who wait!" Mariku said, waving her finger in Gaara's face. He had a sudden premonition of drowning the girl in sand. Mariku must have seen it too, because she finally got to the point. "Um...oh yeah. Tap the clip with your wand and TADA!" She pulled out the wand that she and her brother shared and tapped the clip that fastened the cloak to her shoulder with it. Her body, shoulder and down, disappeared. The kages and those nearby jumped when her head—floating in midair—let out raucous laughter. Her hand shot out from under the hidden area the cloak covered to point at them as she laughed.

"Oh, the look on your faces! Isn't this awesome? No incantation required! It's all in the wand. Now, I'm not sure whether those with Byakugan or Sharingan or any other kind of eye could see it, so I don't know. However, I do know that you have companions at Hogwarts who have the bloodline limits, so I'm going to have to ask you to keep this and tell us _everything_ they can see. Down to the last detail, got it, Kazekage-sama?" Other genins were getting a little bit edgy with Mariku's body missing.

"Take that off," Temari said, approaching the group. "You're frightening the genins. They think this is some sort of test and that they will have to learn to make their bodies disappear too."

Mariku grinned and slipped the invisible cloak off her shoulders and posed. "Ta-dah! Magic trick! Oh wait, damn I dropped it!" she swore, digging in the sands. "Aw, now it's dirty! Now all I have to do is determine whether it shrinks in the washer or not... Oh well, here Kazekage-sama! Yours for the taking. It's a prototype, mind you. I plan on making more eventually, but as our greatest (and only) financer, you get the first one! I'll be releasing a _few_ others in maybe a year or so. By the way, Temari-san, I have something for you too!"

"Oooh, what?" Temari asked eagerly, looking over Mariku's shoulder as she dug around in her bag. It was flat on the ground yet Mariku was able to stick her whole arm inside to search for whatever she was looking for. She finally resorted to bending over and jumping inside (but she left her legs and torso on the ground) as her upper body leaned in to grab a box. A large box.

"How does she always manage to do the impossible?" Temari wondered.

"Voila!" Mariku opened the other box to reveal a flowery, pale fan. It had strange runes on one side, and the other was completely blank. "It looks really nice and you can't really hit people with it though. I don't think even you will find a way to kill someone with it."

"Then what's the use of having it?" Temari demanded.

"Ohoho!" Mariku laughed. "You'll see next time you use it. This fan can be shrunk to the size of a normal fan, but you already know the spell I think, since you've already done so with your own original fan. Now, use the fan with your right hand swinging it right to create one effect. Use your right hand and swing it right to reverse it. Same thing with the left, although don't even _think_ of swinging it right with the right hand and then reverse it with the other. Maruko and I tested it out...not very pretty good. And don't flap it so hard, you don't need to. Just a short flick of the wrist will suffice, and I'm _not_ exaggerating. By the way, all four of you are staring at me like I'm crazy while you were _supposed _to have announced today's event already."

"Huh? Oh!" Tsunade gasped. Everyone else was staring at them. Gaara looked around through the crowd and found Naruto and Mikoto, but where was Saku—

"Hi," Sakura whispered to Gaara, standing next to Tsunade. Ah, no wonder he didn't see her. Tsunade and her giant boobs were in the way. The assistant gave him a little wave.

"Today's chuunin exam is actually the second!" Tsunade announced, surprising many of the participants. But some already knew. Smart little kids, they were. "But that's old news! Today, we will be testing your hunting and gathering skills. Has everyone recieved an envelop on the way here? Everyone has one? Okay! Good. Now, open the envelope and you will find a list of items! You have until tomorrow at noon to gather _all_ of these items. A word of warning: several items must be taken by stealth. And handle each and every one of them with care! At my command, leave! Gather each item as quickly as possible and report to the Kazekage's office for safekeeping. Once you do so, you will be protected from all thieves, for they are not allowed to take items that have already been turned in. Ready! Steady! GO!"

And all of the genins were gone.

"You stole my lines," Gaara muttered.

"Hehe, oops," Tsunade said. "My mistake."

"Is that all there is to the test?" Sakura asked the kages.

"No," Gaara said. "I suppose it also would have been nice to tell them that, even though there are forty-eight participants in this competition, there are only twenty-six to forty-two of each item."

"Oh," Sakura said. "I suppose I should have expected that. After all, we do that at every single exam..."

"Yeah, but there's also the unknown factor that there is an item on the list that does not exist."

"...Oh..." Sakura said. "And what are they supposed to do about that?"

"This is not only a test on who can get what first," Gaara said. "It's also a test on their skills to trick the examiners. Most of us don't know which one is not real either."

"And the games begin," Tsunade said, sipping a cup of sake.

* * *

**Meanwhile, back at Hogwarts...**

...they were at Hogsmeade. It was actually Professor Snape's turn to supervise the trip, but he had locked Anko outside instead and stayed inside while she was stuck watching "those damn bathrobe-wearing midgets", as she so kindly put it. Not that she really minded when she got there. After an hour of asking, pleading, begging, and (finally) threatening, she convinced/dragged Ibiki out with her. And after that, she ran away from him in the crowds, "ooh"ing and "aah"ing at moving figures in the windows. Well, she didn't lose any of the students. The students lost her. Not that anyone realy cared, really. As the Golden Trio headed for Zonko's, they spotted several other students amidst the crowd of wizards. Sasuke and Ino were walking arm in arm as Ino led him all around Hogsmeade, even though she didn't really know where they were herself. Occasionally, she would go snarling at approaching Sasuke fangirls with cameras, and then resume back to her happy-go-lucky "I'm-on-a-date-with-THE-Uchiha-Sasuke" mood. Sasuke wasn't so cheerful, but he was so a little bit more than usual, even letting out a smirk every once in a while. Neji and Tenten weren't so compliant with each other. It seemed that Tenten wanted to go into Madam Puddifoot's to do...whatever couples did in Madam Puddifoot, while Neji was much more...apprehensive. In fact, he was most stubborn not to enter as Tenten pulled on his shit and he pulled back. Ron and Harry snickered, as they resembled a little girl attempting to pull in a donkey into a building who was not very successful. Hermione sighed, feeling sad for the bun-haired girl.

They headed inside Zonko's where Shino was inside, skulking and avoiding his own fans. Very recently, a club/mob was formed and posted some type of cruel and sadistic competition. Whoever was able to unmask the Aburame kid with the 'beautiful eyes' and take a picture won a secret prize. Anyway, Ron, Harry, and Hermione were looking at Zonko's newest products.

"You know," Ron said thoughtfully, grabbing an "auto-ink" quill. "I still think those new teachers assistants could be the kids who left! I mean, Professor Umino looks like the Shikamaru kid."

"No way," Hermione said, shaking her head. "It's just the hair style. They act completely different. Shikamaru's all laid back and lazy. The world could end and he wouldn't lift a finger! Professor Umino is smart, nice, and really interested in teaching our history, unlike that lazy, good-for-nothing fool..." She grumbled on about how Shikamaru doesn't lift a quill yet he aces every single test that the teachers force him to do. "It's totally unlikely. By the way, are you alright, Harry? You're bruised all over!"

"Er, yeah," Harry said, looking at his arms. "It's just the training those people make me go through."

"Looks bad, mate," Ron said, poking at his bruises. Harry winced and glared. No touching. "And no wands?"

"No wands allowed," he affirmed. "It's only hand-to-hand combat."

"Brutal," Ron said, shaking his head. "Just plain brutal."

"But it is rather practical," Harry corrected. "I mean, no one runs around in the middle of a wizard duel, but I thought about it, and what if I'm disarmed? Then I'd be in trouble. I can't defend for my life against any of these new people, but they taught me ways to defend myself. And it's not that bad. Sasuke and Neji and Lee are just brutal when we spar, but when I'm too tired, the teachers just make me run around the quidditch pitch a few times."

"They _just_ make you _run_?" Ron repeated. "Harry, they've brainwashed you! The quidditch pitch is enormous! How can it not be all that bad?"

"And you fight Lee and Sasuke and Neji?" Hermione asked. "Are they that good?"

"They're good," Harry said, nodding his head. "_Really_ good."

"Wait... So..." Ron said in disbelief. "You lost to _Lee_."

"Actually," Harry said, "Lee's one of the harder people to fight. All Neji does is, like, prod me and keeps me from moving for a while. Lee actually hits me and says it's good for my _youth_."

"This is just insane," Ron exclaimed.

"Well, if they find it so easy to beat me, just think about how strong the others are," Harry said. "I bet those teachers are _really_ strong."

"They shouldn't force you to work out when you're all beat up like this," Ron said.

"I'm okay," Harry said. "Really, I am—" But the sound of a familiar mutt was heard outside of the shop, and the Golden Trio heard Akamaru barking madly.

"What's going on?" Hermione wondered as the three ran outside to see what the commotion was. Kiba and Akamaru had confronted a girl with another dog. One that was larger, black, and familiar. Sirius? The owner of the large Grim-like dog wore a comfortable white overcoat, in contrast to Kiba's dark...ninja-ish close.

"You!" Kiba exclaimed, pointing at the metal plate on the headband that the girl wore over her eyes. It resembled the headband that Kiba wore on his forehead, only it had a music note on the front instead of a leaf, and it was much better kept than his own. "You're from the Sound! I know the scent of you warmongers!"

"Say," Ron said. "Isn't that girl a bit familiar?"

"Yeah," Harry said, squinting his eyes.

"Do you think it's the girl from the Forbidden Forest with Naruto?" Hermione asked. "I mean, it was dark so I can't really tell, but I do remember seeing the music note in the moonlight..."

"It...it _is_ her!"

The girl seemed a bit offended, but she may have raised an eyebrow in either amusement or in a taunting manner. "Well, that rude and brash behavior is quite familiar as well," she said. "You must be the Sand."

"...No! I'm not!"

"...Oh. The Stone?"

"Take off the hitai-ate from your eyes!" Kiba snarled. "I'm from the Leaf! The _LEAF_!"

"Oh, that was going to be my fourth guess," she said cheerfully. "And no, I'm not taking off my pride and joy, I worked hard for this hunk of metal!"

"I'm not fighting some blind girl!"

She bent over slightly and stuck her tongue out him. "Nyaaaaah! Then we're not fighting at all!"

"Yes we are!"

"No we're not!"

"Yes we are!"

"No we're...!" This was going on for a while.

"That dog of hers is rather familiar?" Hermione said to Harry. "Isn't that Sirius?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "I don't think he'd be that stupid to risk his life _and_ freedom by getting all attached to some stranger." The dog sneezed through its nose and shook it off.

"That's it! Go, Akamaru!" Kiba said. Kiba's large white dog jumped at the girl. Her black dog intercepted the jump and the dogs fought. Hermione gasped and looked away.

"Aah! Don't you go hurting my Snuffles, you big bully!" the girl cried angrily.

"'Snuffles'..." Ron repeated incredulously as the two dogs romped together. The owners and their dogs were starting to attracted quite a lot of attention from this wizard crowds. "Definitely not Sirius then..."

"He'd _never_ lower himself to such a name," Harry said, shaking his head. The girl's dog sneezed again.

"Somebody stop those dogs!" Hermione said, still not looking. "They shouldn't fight, the dogs'll get hurt!"

"I don't think so, Hermione," Harry said. He pulled her arm. "Look."

Akamaru and 'Snuffles' weren't really fighting at all. While Kiba and the girl argued, the dogs were just wrestling on the ground, wagging their tails in a playful manner. Akamaru lost his fighting spirit and was fooling around with Snuffles, who never really seemed to be all into the fight in the first place.

"...Akamaru! Take them seriously, they're with the Sound!" Kiba whined at his puppy. And, again, Harry found it difficult to believe that Akamaru really was a puppy. How could a three-year-old dog be so large? But that wasn't the point. At that moment, two others appeared. One on Kiba's side, and another on the girl's.

"Kiba...starting fights here is not a most intelligent thing to do," Shino said, his face hidden under his two coats. "It would be wise to leave and report this occurrence to Tsunade, for there is a greater enemy at hand."

A tall man with his face covered by a black cloth appeared from behind the girl. He wore a metal plate identical to the girl's on his neck. Several people jumped at the sight of this new stranger, who had discovered away to silently Apparate, seemingly without the use of a wand.

"Madoka..." the new person said, placing his arm on her shoulder. "...Snuffles. Do not be hasty and pick fights with strangers. We of the Sound are not so... unorthodox. Now, I—"

All of a sudden, a falcon flew in and landed on Madoka's friend's outstretched arm.

"...?" He opened the letter, only to crumple it up in anger.

"What is it, Kuro-kun?" she asked him.

"We need to leave. And talk. And do something about your dog."

"You aren't going to eat him are you? I thought you were just jok—"

"I'm _not _eating that dog, Madoka."

"Oh, okay. Good, I was afraid you were actually going to follow through with tha—" He pulled on her arm and carried her away on his shoulder quickly, followed by Snuffles. "Hey, you don't have to carry me you know...But you don't have to stop, I've been walking all day..."

Kuro-kun paused and turned around. "And we're not retreating!" he shouted to the two 'Leaf' kids. "And if you ever even look at Madoka in a bad way again, I won't hesitate to cut off your legs and stick them on your head!" And then he turned around.

"Um...he's joking...!" Madoka said nervously, slung over his shoulder. "...Honestly, he doesn't really do things like that...!" And they left Hogsmeade.

* * *

(1) huggled: the unique combination of snuggling and hugging an object at the same time (anyone seen Fruits Basket/Furuba?)

Kichi is just an extra suffix to Gaara's name, such as the way Fai is also calling Kurogane Kuro-pipi or Kuro-tan in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. But to name a kid something with a 'kichi' ending, it has to be a real old guy...because no one names their kid "name"kichi. (then again, there is a Gamakichi in Naruto...). The suffix '-kichi' comes from 'kichigai', which means crazy, insane, or in a kindly interpretation, overly enthusiastic. Which is not Gaara. The parts of kichigai are 'ki' (sense, feeling, sanity, emotional state, etc.) and 'chigai' (is different, off, at odds with, etc.). People with 'kichi' in their names were named with the kichi that means 'fortunate', 'lucky', 'good', and 'prosperous'. Basically calling Gaara lucky. Which he is not (you know...born killing his mom, hunted by assassins from his DAD and killing his uncle who turned out to be an assassin, failing to attack Konoha, getting beat up by LEE, getting beat up by NARUTO, and getting stabbed by Sasuke's chidori, getting kidnapped by the Akatsuki, getting killed by the Akatsuki, getting...wait...is that ALL? That's not a lot at all! (sarcasm here, people...))  
But all-in-all, Mikoto calls Gaara 'Gaara-kichi' as in "obsessed with Gaara", or in a more literal term, "obsessed with loving oneself".  
Now, if my definitions or grammer is incorrect, please steer me in the right direction and tell me it's wrong if it is.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Japanese Dating?

"Well," Hermione said slowly. "That was certainly...interesting." Ron, Hermione, and Harry had returned from Hogsmeade early, after having gone through most of the village, having a butterbeer or two or ten, and coming back sick.

"Interesting is a good word," Ron said. "But does Kiba always pick fights with strangers?"

"That girl wasn't really a stranger, Ron," Hermione said. "Maybe not directly, but those two somehow knew each other. They said something about Leaf and Sounds..."

"Oh," Harry said. "That! The Leaf is a place and Japan, I think, and so is the Sounds!"

"Ano..."

The Golden Trio jumped at the sound of a shy, white-eyed girl's voice.

"Hinata!" Hermione said. "You surprised us. We didn't hear you."

"S-sorry," Hinata stuttered nervously, blushing. "I'm really sorry, but I couldn't help but overhear you three talking very loudly... Kiba fought with a girl from the Sound?"

"Sound? Yeah," Harry said. "Kiba picked a fight with some girl with a dog. And then Shino made Kiba stop and another guy from the Sound made the Sound girl stop too. So what's with it between you and the Sound?"

Hinata stared at them in fear. Not fear of Harry's question, but from his answer. "R-r-r-really f-fr-from the S-S-Sound? Th-this isn't g-guh-good!" she stuttered, even worse than before. "They're planning something!"

"Planning what?" Hermione asked her. But she was talking to Hinata's back as she ran away.

"Was it something we said?" Ron asked.

They ran after Hinata.

They couldn't seem to catch up with the running girl, but they saw her destination. Hinata ran into the infirmary, past a flustered Madam Pomfrey, who yelled at her to slow down. It was unnecessary though, as she skidded to a stop to speak to a young woman whom Harry and the others had not met yet.

"Sh..Sh...Shizune...san..." Hinata stuttered and panted at the same time.

"Were you running all around the school?" the woman asked.

"Y...y...ye...yeeess..." she said, sliding down to the floor. Shizune scooped her up and placed Hinata into the bed next to a moaning third-year awaiting treatment.

"Catch your breath before you pass out, Hinata," she said, tending to the moaning student's wounds.

"H...Heee...Hiiinaaaa...taaaaaaaa!" Hermione passed out on the floor, soon followed by Ron. Harry looked down at his two friends, his body aching, glad that he had been training with the new students. (remember, Hinata's not physically weak for a ninja...just think about how hard it must have been for the others just to keep up...)

"Kage, what a mess! Four students half-passed out in less then five minutes!" she exclaimed, dragging them all onto a bed.

"Who...are you?" Harry asked her, catching his breath with everyone else.

"Oh, th-this is Sh-Shizune," Hinata said, already breathing normally. She still had a faint stutter though. These new people were way too fit. It was abnormal.

"Now, Hinata, what is it that you were going to say?" Shizune said to Hinata.

"I—"

"Sorry, hold on. You, boy, what on earth happened to your arms?" she asked Harry.

"Oh, um, just training," Harry said.

"Oh..." Shizune said. "..._Oooh_. I get it. You're Harry Potter! You should have come here whenever you're hurt! I'll heal you right now," she said.

"Erm, no that's okay," Harry said. He remembered what happened last time an inexperienced wizard had tried to heal his injuries. That idiot Lockhart... "I'll just wait for Madam Pomfrey to heal me then."

"Nonsense," Shizune said. "Madam Pomfrey is currently handling a handful of students who were mauled by something called 'scoots'. What they are, I do not know, but I do know that those students are in bad shape and she's tired right now. I assure you, I am definitely qualified enough to handle injuries much more severe than this. Bruises. Even Sakura and Hinata here could heal them during their first month of training! Of course, they're very talented when it comes to things like that! Right, Hinata?"

"Um...I guess..."

"Anyway, I was trained by one of the most famous healers in history," Shizune said proudly. "Tsunade-sama is the greatest!"

"I never heard of her..." Ron said.

"I would expect you to. I'm not from around here."

"Oh, you're one of the new assistants!" Harry said.

"Yes. I was student to Tsunade-sama, one of the three sannins, known for her strength and her healing powers." ...A sannin?

"You're a Healer?" Hermione asked. "But...you're so _young_!"

"Thank you," Shizune said, "but I am already in my early twenties! I am not so young as you make it sound."

"That _is_ young," Harry said, puzzled by this woman's way of thinking. It was young. Especially for a Healer, who required many years of trainings. After all, look at Madam Pomfrey.

"Well Hinata is younger, and she is very skilled," Shizune said. "Now, Harry Potter, arms out. I'm healing you whether you like it or not."

Harry held his arms out in front of him as she told him to and she placed her hands on them. No wand? This couldn't be good. Her hands glowed green for a brief moment, and when the green light faded away, his arms were completely back to normal without its many bruises. He wiggled his fingers. He still had his bones!

"Now, Hinata, what was it that you ran all the way here for?" Shizune asked. Hinata looked at Harry and the others a brief moment and looked away as she took off her hitai-ate Leaf headband. After that, she began speaking in rapid (or stuttering) Japanese as she explained several things to Shizune who frowned.

"I'll tell everyone else about it," Shizune said, looking a bit worried.

"About what?" Hermione asked.

"Hinata's having boy problems," Shizune said. Hinata looked away and blushed, stuffing her face in a pillow in embarrassment. Hinata's reaction fit perfectly with Shizune's excuse, but it was hard for Harry and Hermione to believe. And Shizune and Hinata knew that Ron, Hermione, and Harry knew that it wasn't true. Still, no one was going to admit anything. "You three don't have anything for me to heal, right? Well, um... I'll just let you guys go then. Er, Hinata and I are going to have a...girl to girl talk."

"Um, can I stay?" Hermione asked. "I'm a girl. And I'm having problems with...boys." It looked like she was going to die just saying it.

"Um, I don't know..." Shizune said. "I don't think Hinata would be comfortable if anyone at all knew who she liked."

"It's Naruto, right?" Hermione asked. "The whole school knows it."

"Th-the whole school?" Hinata eeped.

"She does?" Ron asked. "Well _I_ didn't know that."

Hinata buried her head into the blankets. Nooo...the SCHOOL knew? So did that mean... Naruto does too?

"Don't worry," Shizune said, patting the distraught girl on the back. "Naruto is completely oblivious. Okay, now, all of you, _out_!"

* * *

"Honestly, the way that small woman just shoved us out," Hermione said, rubbing her back, where she landed after Shizune forcibly removed them from the infirmary.

"You'd think that by the way she acted, she would be a lot more conservative, less pushy, and not so strong..." Ron muttered.

"Well I saw that Sakura Haruno hit Naruto and Naruto flew at _least_ fifteen feet," Hermione said.

"And Hinata totally accidentally KO'd Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewt! The lucky girl... Hagrid's so scared for their 'safety', all she has to do is bookwork. And Kiba too."

"Well Kiba passes out whenever he gets too close and smells it," Harry reminded them. "If you think they stink bad to us, think about how bad it must be for him."

"Why would it be worse for him? We're all human?"

"Well, I don't know," Hermione said hesitantly. "He is a bit wolfish at times..."

"You think he's a werewolf?" Ron whispered. "I mean, that dog of his likes him. Maybe it's like Sirius and stuff and his dog is an Animagus."

"Honestly, Ron, just because this situation _can_ be like Sirius's doesn't mean it _is_," Hermione said. "Just how many unregistered Animagi are running around here?"

"Shh," Harry said. He shook his head. They shouldn't speak so loudly about those things. The Golden Trio headed into the Great Hall for dinner. Several owls were arriving with late-night packages. One particular owl was carrying a large bag of boxes.

"Now, who'd you reckon that belongs to?" Ron asked, looking at the owl that madly flapped its wings half-drag, half-fly itself across the room. After giving out a weak hoot, it dropped the package on Kiba and fell. Fortunately for the owl, Akamaru safely caught it in his large jaws, even if it didn't look so safe. Kiba, on the other hand, was left half-unconscious from the impact of the parcels.

"Are you okay, Kiba?" Hinata asked.

"Who cares?" Ino asked excitedly. "Looks like Naruto came through after all!"

"What is it?" Harry asked them. Ino smiled.

"Look, they got us _clothes_! Ooh, I knew it. The work of Fujiwara Yoshiko. She's actually the only maker of kimono's in the whole Sand village and they're rare in the Wind Country! And not only that, but she's one of the best in the business too! I knew it. Definitely the work of Sakura and Temari and Gaara."

"Temari and Sakura, I understand," Harry said. "But Gaara?" The creepy Goth guy who remained impartial between other Houses and his own Slytherins?

"H-H-Harry," Ron said, holding up Ino's beautiful purple dress. "Gaara...he's _filthy rich_! Like you!"

"I'm not filthy..." Harry muttered, feeling rather offended by his friend. He looked down at Hinata's black robes with white petals that matched her eyes.

"Twenty thousand yen on one kimono?" he asked Hinata.

"Um...about two hundred American dollars," Hinata said. "Take off two zeros and that's the cost. I'm not sure about galleons whoever."

"Two hundred," Harry repeated. Was this girl crazy? "But it's just a kimono!"

"One made specially by Yoshiko-sama herself," Ino said. Who was Yoshiko? "She's the best in the Wind Country! Sasuke, Sasuke! Over here! There's a box for you too! And everyone else...but you have one too!"

Sasuke opened the box to find... a plaid tablecloth.

"..." He read the card in it. OWNED! --The Great Uzumaki Naruto! XD (just kidding, don't hit me when I come back...) He lifted the table cloth and nearly sighed out loud in relief. "I thought he was serious," Sasuke muttered, picking up his dark blue hakama. He looked at Ino and the fangirls watching him in the Great Hall. Hermione frowned when she heard him whisper to In, "_Meet me in the girl's bathroom later. There's something you should see, but don't bring good clothes._"

* * *

"Oh, come on, Hermione," Ron said later that night. "Why are you acting all paranoid all of a sudden? There are tons of things they could do in the girls bathroom."

"Oh really, Ron? Like what?" Hermione demanded crossly. Ron blushed.

"Like, well... Sasuke and Ino _are_ sort of going out now, right...?" he stuttered, his ears going red. "It's not strange for...for couples to go into places that... uh, people don't ordinarily... _go_ to. Like the broom closet is a very common place for... for things like that."

"Honestly," Hermione sniffed. "Do you even know what's in the girl's bathroom?"

"...Toilets? Sinks? Stalls? A moaning Myrtle?"

"The _Chamber of Secrets_," she hissed. "Do you use that brain of yours? Because it might be getting dusty."

Harry looked around in the relatively empty Common room. Akamaru was sleeping lazily in front of the fireplace. Ino and the others were in a corner, whispering. Harry managed to catch a few words that Ino whispered to the other Griffindors, aside from Lee, who was somewhere outside 'training' with his father.

"...I can't...tonight. ...catch him... later..." she said. Hinata frowned.

"...not right... shouldn't do...this," Hinata whispered.

"...for his... good," Kiba said with a grin on his face, similar to that of Fred and George's faces when they were up to something.

"Munch...munch...munch. Gai's gonna...pissed."

"...shouldn't be, but who knows?"

"Anyway, I have to go," Ino said in a slightly louder voice, now that the whisper section was over. Hermione, Ron, and Harry exchanged looks and headed for Harry's trunk where his invisibility cloak lay folded, ready to be used..

"You're going out in _that_?" they heard Kiba ask.

"Yeah."

"This is some weird date. Don't get caught by Filch."

"Shut up. And I won't. Or else calling myself the most beautiful kunoichi in Konoha would be unjustifiable."

"It is unjusti—ow!"

"Hurry up," Hermione whispered as Ino opened the portrait. They walked quickly under Harry's cloak. Despite their efforts to move silently, the remaining few Griffindors in the room looked around for the sound. Luckily, they didn't look into it and the Golden Trio followed after the blond girl as she left.

"_I solemnly swear I'm up to no good_," Harry said, tapping on the Marauder's Map. Ino was avoiding people surprisingly well for someone without a cloak or a Marauder's map. She completely avoided halls that had people in it, and managed to hide behind something each time a split second before a ghost could float through the walls. Not only that, but she was also able to move as quickly as she did silently.

It took quite a deal of effort for Harry, Hermione, and Ron to keep up with her without any noise at all. It seemed Ino had experience sneaking around. She opened the door and grimaced. Despite the fact that nobody ever used this bathroom, it was still rather dirty.

"Sasuke?"

"It took you long enough," Sasuke muttered. He would have leaned against the wall, in his make-a-good-appearance mode, but they were a bit dirty.

"Sorry, I had plans to get Lee tonight, but he didn't show and there was this, whatever we're doing," Ino muttered.

"Get Lee?" Sasuke asked.

"It's a surprise!" Ino winked at him. "I will change the world! Bwahahahaha..." As Ino laughed, Ron, Hermione, and Harry crept towards a toilet stall.

"..." Sasuke sweatdropped. "Anyway, I was in here, kinda hiding out. I have something to show you," he said, biting his thumb. Hermione made a face when blood leaked from it.

"Masochist," Ron muttered.

"I really don't like that boy," someone on Harry's left said. Wait...if Ron was on Harry's right, and Hermione was on Ron's right, then... WHO ON EARTH WAS ON HARRY'S LEFT?

Harry yelled (quietly), and all three of them jumped away from Myrtle, who seemed to have joined them under the invisibility cloak.

"Who was that?" Ino said, looking around.

"It's probably just Moaning Myrtle, some ghost of a dead girl who died in this bathroom fifty or so years ago," Sasuke muttered. "She haunts the bathroom. A bit irritating, but she can't really do anything to you but complain." Myrtle made a face and shrugged as she floated through the cloak and the stall's door, wailing loudly.

"You're talking about me aren't you?" she cried loudly. "What else were you going to say, I'm annoying? Fat? Loud? Pimply?" Ino, Hermione, Harry, and Ron all winced. How was it that the entire school did not hear this?

"Well, I wasn't going to say it," they heard Sasuke say loudly, "but I sure am thinking it now." He turned to Ino. "Just ignore her, all she'll do is complain or yell in your ear."

Myrtle 'hmphed' and returned back to the stall to Harry and the others. "He's always like that," she whispered, sniffing indignantly. "He's been coming in here for a while and—"

"Kuchiyose no jutsu!" Sasuke placed his thumb and slapped the floor. The blood worked as ink and created several runes. Hermione gasped. "_I think I saw something like that in a book!_" she hissed. There was a 'poof' of smoke and a tiny snake appeared.

"Open it," Sasuke said to the snake.

"Was it Parseltongue?" Harry asked Ron and Hermione, unable to tell the difference when either was spoken.

Ron shook his head. "Normal English," he whispered in response. But the snake did not speak the same.

"_I want a sacrifice_..." it hissed to him.

"You are as gluttonous as your worm of a father," Sasuke replied to the snake. "A tiny, useless thing like you have already feasted on the flesh of the dead creature down below. Isn't that sacrifice enough? And all you do is say open up to a bloody sink. Now do it!" Sasuke said, prodding the snake and pushing its face into the faucet where the picture of the snake was scratched into.

The snake grumbled something about how it was under-appreciated. "_My father will hear about this...Open_!"

"He opened the Chamber of Secrets," Harry said.

"And he's not even a real Parselmouth," Hermione whispered.

"I'll go first with the Invisibility cloak," he said. "Ron, Hermione, wait thirty seconds and then go down. It might be dangerous."

"What would be?" Ron asked. "You killed the basilisk in there two years ago. What else could be down there?"

"Dark items, curses, Sasuke and perhaps Ino," Hermione said. "You saw how he ordered that snake around. And he summoned it too! I saw runes shaped like that in Ancient Runes. It's some sort of ancient, theoretical summoning rune. No wizard has ever been able to properly summon a creature like that before!"

"Keep your wands out," Harry said to them, heading for the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

"Bye, Harry!" Moaning Myrtle said, waving him. "Don't be afraid to die! I'll save you a stall."

"...Thanks."

And Harry jumped down the tunnel.

* * *

A Brief Intermission: Prelude to Disaster

"Um, Iruka-san?" Shizune said, knocking on the door to the quarters he 'shared' with Binns. The dead professor didn't really sleep in a bed anyway, just floating around in midair. Each of the assistants shared quarters with their respective professor. Not rooms or beds, but space. Since Iruka was the only one who did not have to share anything, considering the fact that Binns was oblivious to his assistant and didn't really require anything, they used his rooms as their private headquarters to discuss events at Hogwarts and issues back at home.

"Oh, hi Shizune," Iruka said.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, looking down at her feet. "I was busy tending to a few leftover Skrewt victims."

"Oh, Kakashi!" Kurenai growled. "You said you were looking after the students! And put down that book and look at be before I burn it!"

Kakashi obediently put Come Come Paradise away, frightened by the prospect of losing his precious. His other one. He smiled sheepishly at Kurenai. "Um...the Skrewts overpowered me?"

Iruka laughed. "Well, at least it's not Kakashi who's late," he said.

Kakashi gasped. He forgot to forget! He groaned. Next time, he ought to be _extra_ late then.

"NOW THAT WE ARE ALL HERE, WE MAY DISCUSS THE YOUTH OF OUR STUDENTS!"

"Right," Asuma said, taking out a new cigarette.

"Now, the young ones are getting rather sidetracked," Iruka said. "I overheard several Slytherin students talking. Apparently, they've been planning on jumping the Harry Potter boy for a while."

"Yes, well I actually received a note from Sakura, telling me that," Kakashi said. "However, I heard that they'd been planning it for years now, and don't seem to be taking any action. The Slytherins are all talk and no play."

"Action, you mean," Kurenai corrected.

"It's all the same for us."

"You know what sucks?" Anko asked. "Snape was supposed to be on the Hogsmeade trips, and he sends me instead. And then I get lost! Do you know how many hours I spent stuck in there until I realized I lost all of the students? And Snape has a whole bunch of rooms, but he makes me stay in the guest bedroom and living room all day. I mean, honestly, he's locked all doors to me! I can't open it without his permission!"

"I don't blame him," Ibiki said, remembering a slumber party he had when they were all genins. "You destroy things."

"It's not that bad," Anko said. "Who needs a five century year old vase anyway? I say greaseball here is overreacting to everything. I mean, the table from the fourteenth century or whatever broke, but it's not my fault that he had all sorts of expensive things on there! And who collects those antiques anyway? And he called me a _distraction_ to his work. Well maybe if he'd stop paying attention to me when I run around, he won't screw up on his potions! It's not my fault! I mean, sure, I bumped into his cauldron, but maybe if he wore better protective clothing, he wouldn't have gotten burned! And that happened _only two times_, so he can't just blame _me_!"

"Moving on to more _important_ business..." Ibiki said, shaking his head. '_I feel for you, Snape..._' "People are talking about some Triwizard Tournament, which will take place in a matter of days once students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons arrive. Once they do, I say we put them through a test, to make sure that none of them will attack Harry Potter."

"I say you're paranoid, Ibiki," Anko said. "How many homicidal maniacs do you think are in these schools anyway? Here, they are considered children. Little kids. Snot-nosed brats. Just how much destruction can one kid cause anyway?"

"You remember the Gaara kid when he was twelve," Ibiki said.

"Well we're shinobi, and they're wizards. They suck! We rock! Hell yeah!" Anko cheered, raising her arms in the air.

"YES, WE BURN WITH THE FLAME OF YOUTH!" Gai cheered with her.

"Yaaaay!"

"If everyone were enthusiastic as Anko and Gai, I don't think we'd need cheerleaders anymore," Kurenai said.

"Which would be a real pity," Kakashi said, reading his book again. Kurenai grabbed the book and slapped him upside the head with it.

"Also, Hinata came to the infirmary earlier and told me that today in Hogsmeade, Kiba encountered a member of the Sound," Shizune said.

"The Sound?" Iruka repeated. "Here in the wizarding world?"

"They must be planning something again," Asuma murmured. "Well, I say we ought to send scouts out to Hogsmeade."

"School is back in session tomorrow," Kurenai said. "Stop snuggling me, Kakashi. Just because you don't have your book anymore doesn't mean you can bribe me like that."

"Yeah, Kurenai's right," Ibiki said. "If we leave the moment we come, it'll attract even more so attention than we already have. A lot of students keep talking about us anyway."

"It's _your_ fault," Anko whined. "I mean, you're face! It's unforgettable! They think you're that Mad-man's Japanese twin! And that's not even possible!"

"Let's stay on subject, shall we?" Iruka said.

"Now, I say we send two people to Hogsmeade," Anko said. "It would be less attention grabbing if we cause a scene and two of us 'fight' and get sent to the infirmary. That'll buy us maybe an hour or two or three. Maybe even a day!"

"We did that in _Academy _school," Ibiki said.

"That can't work," Asuma said. "We aren't kids anymore."

"I know, I'll ask Greaseball to poison us or something!" Anko joked.

"That's not funny," Kakashi said. Anything that man whipped up really could end up deadly.

"Um, I think that we ought to stick with the fight," Shizune said.

"Which one of us?" Ibiki asked.

"Me! Me!" Anko cried, jumping up and down with her hand in the air. "Pick me!"

"I have to stay at the infirmary. Students are getting hurt left and right in Care for Magical Creatures."

Kurenai and Kakashi looked at each other. "We have important lesson plans," they said. Their date was tomorrow. Wait, two hours in Hogsmeade? "But we can both go together," Kurenai insisted, but Iruka already crossed their names off the list he made.

"I'm the only person the students listen to in class, and they really need to get up to date with this History, so I can't go," Iruka said.

"As hard as it is to believe, I enjoy the Defense Against Dark Arts classes," Ibiki said. Watching as Moody terrorized students was most interesting. He didn't even get in trouble, unlike when Ibiki did with the Academy students.

"I WILL GO AND SEARCH AND HUNT DOWN THESE ENEMIES OF OUR FLAMES OF YOUTH!" Gai shouted. Anko stopped raising her hand.

"If he goes, then I won't," she said stubbornly.

"Okay, anyone else?" Everyone looked at Asuma.

"Who can imagine me and that Gai going around Hogsmeade together?" Asuma asked. "Forget it."

"Fine, you can stand Anko, right?" Kurenai asked.

"So long as she doesn't try anything funny or anything I'm fine," Asuma said.

"Thank you," Anko said. If she would have been paired off with Gai and forced to spend over thirty minutes in the same fifty-meter radius of him, someone would die.

* * *

Harry slid down the tunnel and tumbled out onto the ground. Sasuke and Ino were nowhere to be seen. The heavy boulders that had fallen from the ceiling two years ago when Lockhart zapped himself with a memory charm were gone. In fact, things were looking a bit cleaner. Perhaps Sasuke had cleaned. Harry almost laughed out loud at the thought of Sasuke in an apron with his hair tied up with a pink bow (anime style!). And then he shuddered. It was actually kind of creepy...

Harry stood up, only to be knocked back down to the ground by a force that felt as powerful as a stampeding hippogriff.

"Urgh..." Harry groaned, blacking out for a minute. He saw spots.

"Bloody hell! Sorry 'bout that, mate," Ron said, helping his friend up.

"I...have a footprint on the side of my head, don't I?" Harry asked.

"Um, yeah," Hermione said nervously, hiding her laughter in the darkness.

"Sorry..."

"Quiet, Ino and Sasuke might hear us," Hermione said.

"Right. Almost forgot," Ron said. They re-draped themselves under Harry's invisibility cloak and went straight through the tunnel.

"Ew, what's that?" they heard Ino's voice, echoing through the hallways.

"I looked it up. It's the carcass of a dead basilisk. If you look closely, the blood on its nose shows that it was stabbed through the brain from inside the jaw. You can even see the dried blood on its teeth where the person who did this was bitten. A basilisk bite is poisonous, but there is no other body. I saw through my Sharingan that there are many preservation spells in this chamber. Meaning this snake could have been here for years. But if it has, then where is the body of its killer? If the person was bitten by this snake, then he or she should be dead. Where's the body? Whoever killed it must have had powerful healing powers. Or perhaps a companion with the healing powers."

"And all this you knew from a single dead snake..." Ino commented, thoroughly impressed.

"I'm exceptionally not stupid, if you had not noticed," Sasuke said.

"I know, I know," Ino said. "I couldn't have learned all this if I looked myself."

"You probably could have found out eventually," he replied. "I'm just a bit faster than others. But that's not what's interesting. Did you know that the founder of my house, Salazar Slytherin, lived in here? He's the one who made all of this. The Chamber of Secrets that nobody knows about. He lived down here. Made a big house, practically an indoor city. There's a library inside. Librar_ies_. Plural. Lots of them. On different things. Books about all sorts of Light Magic, Dark Magic, and everything in between. But that's not what matters. It does, but I don't care about it. They have books on us. Shinobi."

_Shinobi_? Hermione mouthed to Harry. What was a shinobi? Harry shrugged. Too hard to explain...

"It sounds impressive," Ino said, "but where is all of this?"

"Inside the old man's mouth," Sasuke smirked, nodding to the large statue of the man's head. "I went inside. It's wide, enough room for the basilisk to move around inside. My guest is that's where the thing lived. What it protected..."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione backed away, out of earshot.

"A city in the guy's mouth?" Ron repeated. If he had not always lived surrounded by magic, it would have been hard for him to believe. It was already hard enough for him to believe, and he was a wizard too.

"I suppose it is possible," Hermione said. "But what on earth is a shinobi?"

"Er..." They both looked at Harry, who had been closest to all of them ever since his training began. Was Harry allowed to tell? "A shinobi is like...a Japanese wizard, like Dumbledore said they are," he answered. Not completely a lie, right?

"He's not a Parseltongue," Ron said, "but he _summons_ snakes. What do you think those weird since were?"

"Probably summoning runes," Hermione said logically. "Ancient summoning runes that no one in the world has been able to use. Except for Sasuke and possibly several of his friends..."

"This is insane," Ron said. A hissing sound echoed in the tunnels. "What's that Sasuke's snake is saying?"

"He's saying 'open'," Harry said. "That's all."

"Of course," Hermione said. "If Salazar Slytherin's password was too difficult to find out, why would he bother casting preservation spells all over the place to save it for future generations? If it was too hard, no one would be able to get inside."

"Makes sense," Harry said, peering past the wall as the dark haired boy and the blond girl disappeared in Salazar's open mouth. It shut quickly. "Um, either it opens for a short time or only a few people at a time because it closes really quickly. "When I get it to open, you two go in. That way if it closes, then I can still get inside. Wands out?"

They did have them. They treaded softly past the dead snake that had not seemed to decompose yet. Probably the preservation spells Sasuke spoke of earlier. But Harry noticed that in the snake's side... well a big chunk of it was missing. Not so big as to draw much attention in the darkness, but its side had been cut open. Perhaps Sasuke's snakes had gotten to it?

"Move fast," Harry said. "_Open._" The mouth of the statue opened, just like it had in Harry's second year when the memory in Tom Riddle's diary set the basilisk on him. Harry shuddered. No, the basilisk was dead. The only thing he had to worry about were...other dangers, since he didn't really know what was inside anyway. Ron and Hermione quickly ran inside before the mouth shut once again. That was fast. It was a good thing Harry hadn't tried to go inside right after them himself, or else Slytherin's statue would have had a Harry for dinner. He shuddered at the thought of being crushed inside the stone mouth/tunnel.

"_Open_," he repeated for himself. He ran inside, thanking Merlin that his training hadn't worn him out too badly as he disappeared into darkness. "_Lumos_."

Harry's wand lit up. He saw Ron and Hermione waving at him to put his light out, and Harry did. Their hands fumbled around in the darkness until they found each other. Harry recovered them under the Invisibility Cloak.

"Something happen?" Harry asked.

"Sasuke and Ino might see the light in the hallway," Hermione explained, relighting her wand under the safety of the Invisibility Cloak. "It's still hard to see," she muttered.

"Let me try," Harry said. "_Lumos_." His wand light up also. He frowned and focused on the light and his own magical energy. His light refocused and became a beam of light, rather than 'loose light' (1).

"Wow," Ron said. "It goes farther."

"I see an exit," Harry said. "Let's go forward." And with Hermione's light making sure they didn't stumble over their feet or nearby rocks and Harry's wand lighting a path straight ahead, the Golden Trio.

"Or an entrance," Hermione said. They approached the brighter light when Harry's instincts went haywire.

"_Protego_!"

"_Katon Goukakyu no Jutsu!_" (Fire Element; Grand Fireball) they heard a voice shout, and the three were engulfed in a sea of flames.

"Aaaaah!" Hermione screamed.

"Bloody hell, we're burning!" Ron shouted as they were surrounded in red-hot flames. They weren't really, but Ron's always freaking out like that (honestly, in every single movie (1-3), he's screaming his bloody head off and going, H-H-Haaaaarrrryyyyy! like with Aragog and stuff...). Harry's shield protected them from most of the harm, but it was getting relatively warm.

"Wait a minute, Sasuke!" Ino's voice cried. "I know that stupid voice, it's just some Griffindor! Don't toast them!"

The fire receded in moments as Harry, Hermione, and Ron, who were all feeling uncomfortably warm, froze.

"I don't see anyone," Sasuke said. His eyes were... red.

"I could have sworn I heard him!" Ino cried. "Sasuke, you burnt them to ashes!" Harry and Hermione looked at each other and exchanged glances. Ron was currently unable to, being frozen in fear on the ground. Harry shrugged. It seemed relatively safe. He took off the Invisibility Cloak. Ino gasped.

"Haaarry!" she cried, tears in her eyes. "You're alive! Oh my god, the moment I heard your Ron screaming his bloody head off, I knew you three were here! Kage, we would have been in soooo much trouble if we killed you dead!" She hugged each one of them.

"What the bloody hell did you do?" Ron demanded, his right eye twitching.

"Magic," Sasuke said, bluntly. No wand? No, wait, he had it out. It just didn't seem to be directed at them or anything. As if he brought it out to make it seem like what he had just done was magic.

"That was a really long incantation," Hermione commented.

"Why'd you do that?" Harry asked.

"You could have been enemies," Sasuke replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"But we could have been friends! And we are!" Ron said. "Merlin, I nearly wet myself there... Hey, I said _nearly_. NEARLY!"

Harry grinned. He looked around. They were in a fireplace that looked as if they hadn't been used in centuries. The tunnel behind them became a brick wall. Harry's eyes widened as he ran back and placed his hands on the cold bricks. This was no illusion.

"Open," he said, although his Parseltongue didn't kick in. "Open!"

"We're stuck!" Ron moaned. "We'll be stuck here forever! And ever! And ever again!"

"Relax," Sasuke said. "We're under Hogwarts. That's the only way to get inside. But... there are plenty of ways we can get out."

Ron relaxed immediately, but muttered something about cocky guys who had no real facial expression. There seemed to be several of them at Hogwarts anyway.

"How do we get out?" Hermione asked him.

"I wanna leave!" Ino said. "This place is so old and dusty and dirty!"

"This is an 'uncharted' area of Hogwarts. There are no known tunnels or exits to the Headmaster and the staff. I did some exploring earlier. Don't feel bad, do—idiot..." Sasuke frowned, nearly referring to Naruto. They hadn't really spoken much since that incident. He had never really properly mocked the boy. But that wasn't the matter at hand here. "I was plenty...cautious (no, not scared...Sasuke's NEVER scared. Zabuza doesn't count, does he? He's kinda dead...) when the tunnel disappeared. So I spent a little time down here. Found a few secret passageways. I'll map it out on my own eventually. Meanwhile, let's do some more exploring, shall we?" He looked at Ino and flashed a smile. He had been practicing in the mirror when no one was looking. And that practice paid off, as Ino turned to putty.

"Let's explore!" she said with new enthusiasm. Sasuke's smile may have never reached his eyes, but the fact that his eyes remained narrow gave him a sly look, like what Naruto would probably look like if he were more intelligent.

The Golden Trio sighed as their only connection to the way out led Ino through a door and into a hallway. They followed after the odd couple, really wishing they had never come in the first place. It seemed that each time they attempted to spy on one of these new people, they'd be discovered, and then they would have to leave with no real useful information. After all, why on earth would you need a secret hideout built under Hogwarts that only you and a certain few people could enter? Honestly, no one has any use for a headquarters like that! (note the sarcasm please...)

"I have a feeling," Ron muttered under his breath, "that whoever's idea to go down here was complete rubbish. A waste of time. We follow them to find out this is some kind of weird Japanese version of a date!" he said as they all jogged to keep up with Sasuke and Ino. Harry wasn't so sure that his friend was right. After all, if in the right hands, it could be rather useful in the future (2).

* * *

(1) Meaning, if Harry focused hard enough, he could make a laser pointer! Coolies! Yeah, it's like a beam of flashlight instead of, like, a lamp. Er... can't think of a good example... Okay, well back then, the Greeks (I think it was the Greeks...hm... -.-) put a half-dome thing on top of a candle and the mirror reflected the candle in one general area... So the light shines further and is focused towards the front. That basically sorta/is what Harry's light looks like. Chakra control? Hehe.  
(2) I know, I know, Harry doesn't really do anything this year that would actually require a secret hideout or anything, but what the hey, who cares? There's always next year. Or the year after that. Or the year after that. Heh.  
Golden Trio: that's what they call the Harry-Ron-Hermione team thing right? Anyway, that's what I'll call them sometimes, because typing it all out makes my fingers tired after a while.

* * *

My Thinking Corner: (and the things with the numbers and explanations)

Oh yeah, I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire a week ago. Better than the other movies, but not much compared to the book. I was disappointed by the fact that they skipped seeing Sirius and Rita Skeeter was hardly in there. However, I do like how Harry got the gillyweed. I don't like Dobby that much. Anyway, there are some things in the movie that would be a bit better suited for this fiction, although the book is easier, more practical, and I prefer it. So...I suppose it's going to be a mix of all three? Okay, maybe not.

Ideas for weapons would be greatly appreciated. I had an idea for one from Naruto, but that's pretty much ripping it off from Flame of Recca, and I dislike that. Of course, if I don't get any ideas, I'll be doing that anyway. Whatever.

By the way... I think I have a more interesting idea than even Kankurou and the Sarea girl! ...Hehehehehe... HAhahahahaha... MUahahahahahaha (eyes twitching as I do my evil laugh)  
ANYWAY, I have a new couple in mind. It might not show for a few chapters, but it might be interesting. Hehehe.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Treasure Hunt

"Hey, stupid!" Naruto heard someone yell. It was Mikoto and a group of people he could only assume were her friends.

"What do you want?" he asked her as she approached.

"This is Husani Gahiji, Furoshiki Houtai, and Mineko Aizesu (1) from my team," she said. "Guys, this is Naruto."

Gahiji and Aizesu had dark skin and shoulder-length black hair. Like Mikoto, they wore heavy eyeliner and turquoise eye shadow, although Gahiji had many gold decorations, like earrings, bracelets, necklaces, anklets, a staff, and other piercings. Aizesu had a black cat hanging onto the back of her hood. They're golden eyes were slightly unnerving. Houtai, however, had corn rows, braids on his skull. At the end of that, his hair trailed off as a ponytail, completely wrapped by a thick white bandage. He also wore bandages around his neck and, it appeared, under his loose garments. Cotton robes... His dark brown eyes watched Naruto's every movement.

Not that he really needed to, since Naruto had no intention of attacking Gaara's 'assistant'. Anyway, he wasn't the type of person to go ambushing others.

"Four people to a team?" Naruto asked.

"We're the only genins from the Red Sand, so Gaara-kichi stuck us all together. So what do you have?"

"How do I know you're not going to loot me?" he asked skeptically.

"We'll work together!" Mikoto said. "Like a big happy family! Anyway, no one really likes us too much. We've been jumped four times already. Not that it's that bad. We've got six out of twenty-six from that."

"Cool, I have seven," Naruto said. "Cat's Eye earrings, a steel arrowhead, a fairy's honey, a summoning rock, orihalcon ore, opal ore, topaz."

"Sap of ancient tree, steel arrowhead, gold ore, mithril plate, black crystal ore, opal ore," Mikoto listed. "Cool, that's only two doubles we have. Stick with us, we need all the people we could get. We all decided that once we get all the ones we can, we'll fight amongst ourselves for them!" (these items are from MS due to my lack of ideas for treasure hunt items!)

"You say that so cheerfully..." Naruto muttered. "They're your teammates."

"Well," Mikoto said, "We all decided that if not all of us are going to make it to the next round, we might as well let the strongest of us go."

"Why?" Gahiji asked with a smirk. "You afraid you'll lose your stuff?"

"Not to you," Naruto replied cheekily. "I've trained with Jiraiya for two and a half years! There's no way I'll lose to you!"

"Jiraiya?" Aizesu repeated suddenly. "As in the Sannin?"

"He's a real pervert," Naruto said.

"Just how old are you?" Gahiji asked him.

"Fourteen!" Naruto said triumphantly. "I'm almost fifteen though."

Gahiji sighed. "This feels unfair."

"What about you guys?"

"Mikoto's twelve. I'm sixteen. Aizesu's fourteen like you. I think Houtai is fifteen," Gahiji said. "So what's Jiraiya like?"

"He's a pervert who spies on bathhouses and writes books like Icha Icha Tactics."

Aizesu coughed. "Are you serious? He's like-he's like you, Giji!"

"Hey, I never wrote a book!" Gahiji retorted.

"You idiot!"

"Take that back!" Gahiji said, reaching towards her face when Aizesu's cat attacked him like a monster. "Aaah!"

Bandages shot past Naruto and entangled the two genin and the cat. He turned around to see that Houtai had partially unraveled himself to shut them up, wrapping bandages around their faces. He shifted them to let them breath through their noses, but covered the rest of their faces.

"You're wasting time," he said. "I'm letting you go, and you two are going to stop fighting and get back to this...treasure hunt."

"Houtai can be a bit creepy sometimes," Mikoto said shrugging as Aizesu and Gahiji separated. "Right, so how'd you get so many of this stuff? Did everyone jump you too?"

"No," Naruto said with a grin. "Because I have a secret weapon!"

He whipped out his wand triumphantly.

"It's a stick," Gahiji muttered.

"A wand!" Mikoto said. "Mariku and Maruko have one of those!"

"Yeah! And I learned something with it too! It's called a summoning charm," Naruto said proudly. "But uh...you might want to back up..."

"Why?"

"Half the time, something bad happens when I use this."

Mikoto and her team nervously backed away. Naruto looked down at the next item on his list. A wooden voodoo doll.

"_Accio Wooden Voodoo Doll_!"

* * *

**A brief intermission**

Anko was edging out of the classroom along with the students on her tiptoes when the bell rang, hoping not to hear the sound of...

"_Mitarashi_..." Damn.

"Yeeees, Snapey-poo?" she asked in a sickly sweet voice.

"_Stop_ calling me that," he scowled. "And where do you think you're going?"

"...Out?"

"Detention is in ten minutes. You are staying."

"But why do _I_ hafta have detention?" she whined.

"I don't know how you did it, Mitarashi, but the snakes in the classroom did not come out of nowhere," Snape said.

"I'm not a student!"

"You act like one."

"No I dooooon't!"

"Yes you do."

"No I don't!"

"Yes you do."

"No I don't...!" While Snape was having a meaningless argument with Anko's Kage Bunshin, the real one snickered and crept out of the classroom.

"As stimulating as this argument is," Snape drawled, "I'm afraid we both should not be wasting out time like this. _Accio Anko_!"

"Heeey, you bastard!" Anko said as she slid backwards across the floor and into a desk. "I hate it when you do that!"

"You're likes and dislikes are dully noted," he said. "Sit."

"But I don't wanna!"

"Noooow."

"I've gotta meet Asuma so we can do something."

"...Something?"

"Yeah."

"What?"

"Not telling! Hah!"

"Then you are staying."

"So if I tell you then you'll let me go?"

"Perhaps."

"I'm going to Hogsmeade with Asuma! Bye!" Anko began to run out the room when an invisible forced pulled her back into the room once again.

"I _said_ perhaps."

"You tricked me!"

"You tricked yourself."

Anko grumbled.

"So," he said. "You're on a date with that guy?"

Anko twitched. "...UGH! No!" she cried, grabbing her head. "...My head! The picture! It's burning me! Waaaah!"

"He's very not attractive, but I don't think that warrants a reaction like that," Snape said, although he was rather relieved. Why? He did not know.

"He _smells_ funky," Anko said. "It's the smoking." She shuddered. "Say it again and I'll stretch your tongue out. Then you'll _really_ freak out your students." She laughed at a memory. Snape was left a bit confused.

"Pleeeeaase let me go!" Anko pleaded. "I need to goooo!"

"Merlin's beard, Mitarashi, you sound like you need to go to the Little Witch's room," he sneered. "I'll let you go under two conditions."

"Oooh, what?" she asked.

"The first is that you must behave properly in my Potion's classes for an entire week."

"'Properly' meaning...?"

"...Just act like I do."

"And hover over Griffindors as they blow up potions? I'm afraid I can't do that. My reflexes aren't as 'well-honed' as yours and my face will be blown up," Anko said cheekily. He glowered at her. "Alright, alright, I'll make fun of Potter."

"That's more like it," he said, almost with pride of finally taming the crazy assistant. "And that means no funny stuff. I don't know how you brought those snakes in, but Hufflepuffs aren't cocky enough to pull something like that off and the Ravenclaws aren't that stupid to risk expulsion. ("Dammit, I knew I should have done it in his class with the Weasleys...!") The second condition is that I go too."

"What? Why?"

"Well, Asuma has yet to come on a Hogsmeade trip, and you are constantly losing yourself. Leaving you two alone in that village will mean that we'll have to send out a search party, wasting more class time," he said, matter-of-factly. "As skillful as you say you are, you probably couldn't find your way out of the castle without me for you to follow."

"I do _not_ follow you around."

"I'm not an idiot, nor am I blind."

"...coulda fooled me...You got black eyes. That's unnatural by the way."

"Like the Hyuga cousins' white eyes?"

"Yeah. Like the Hyugas. Anyway, I'll be a good girl in class and you could show us around Hogsmeade, then." As long as Asuma and I don't end up fighting shinobi with jutsus and as long as I don't get stuck alone with the cauldron bat, it's all good, right? ...Right?

* * *

**Back to the Chuunin Exams**

"AAAAAAH!" Mikoto, Gahiji, and Aizesu jumped behind a building where Houtai already stood.

"What the hell?" Gahiji was swearing loudly, hit by debris. "Ooooow..."

"Oh, hehe," Naruto laughed nervously. "Oops. That's the third time it happened today."

Naruto...got the wooden voodoo doll on the list. In several pieces. "Don't worry," he said, scratching the back of his head. The doll had gone through several buildings, tearing it apart.

"I never knew a doll could be so dangerous..." Aizesu muttered.

"We, uh...we better run," Mikoto said as the owners of the building began investigating the scene.

"...Yeah." They slowly backed away and, once they were out of sight, they ran off.

"Ooh, they are going to be so pissed," Mikoto laughed.

"How did that happen?" Gahiji asked.

"I don't know, my wand's been backfiring a lot lately."

"Well...you want Maruko to look at it? He has one too," Mikoto said, pointing at their shop nearby.

"I don't know," Naruto said. "Maruko's got a bit of a funny gleam in his eye..."

Aizesu frowned. "Oh come on, he's not _that_ crazy!" she laughed, pulling them inside. "Besides," she whispered, "there's _another_ team after us." Her cat climbed back onto her back. When had it left in the first place?

The shop was dark and seemed empty, except for the various strange objects hanging on the ceiling and the walls. Naruto looked around, feeling rather paranoid with these lifeless objects looming above him. Some of them had glassy eyes, made of some strange Makoto-produced materials. Others didn't have eyes at all.

"'Ruko?" Mikoto asked. "Hey, are you in here?"

"DON'T BOTHER ME, I'M WORKING YOU STUPID FUCK!" a disgruntled voice said.

"Wow," Gahiji said sarcastically. "Your brother sure is in a good mood today."

"Oh, don't worry, this side of him won't last too long," Mikoto said, waving her hand dismissively. "He's working on a new project." His angry side? Or was he really just more cheerful than usual?

"The one Gaara asked to do?" Naruto asked.

"Yup. Let's not bother him while he's happy," she said. "All we need to do is stock up on my equipment."

"What equipment?" Naruto asked as Mikoto rummaged through drawers.

"It's not equipment," Aizesu muttered indignantly. "It's just a hole bunch of parlor tricks."

"Shut it, catwoman," Mikoto said, not at all offended, pulling out a...utility belt? There were several small vials in each slot. "These are kick-ass parlor tricks."

"The vials are smaller," Houtai commented.

"They look smaller," Mikoto said, "but I also have more types."

"Why are we wasting our time here?" Aizesu said. "There's another team right outside about to pick us off for us to pick them off! Hurry up, girl!"

"Well we aren't supposed to do anything to damage the buildings anyway," Gahiji said.

"I think that Naruto was the first to break that rule," Houtai replied.

"_Anyway_," Mikoto said. "You will find that several of our Makoto products make good booby traps!"

"Those look like ordinary explosion tags," Aizesu muttered as Mikoto, brandishing several explosion tags, smirked in response.

"Well they aren't," Mikoto said. "Kitty's outta the way, right?"

"Nyaasu's not in the way," the older girl said through gritted teeth, holding her cat in her arms.

"Right, right," she replied. Her teammates backed away as Mikoto took out several small spheres that resembled marbles and placed an explosion tag in each one. They knew something was going to happen, and if they were hit by it, they weren't going to like the consequences. "Alright, you guys, don't move a muscle." She dusted them all with some sort of black powder from the table and did the same to herself as she threw the black spheres onto the ground.

Something blew up and Naruto was left unable to see.

"What the hell?" he growled, waving his hands in the air in an attempt to blow away the thick smoke.

"I told you idiots not to move!" Mikoto said. Naruto found himself wrapped up from head to toe. He nearly panicked and struggled to disentangle himself. The smoke cleared away unnaturally quickly and Naruto saw what had him all tied up. He, along with Gahiji and Aizesu, were completely wrapped in bandages from Houtai. The bandages were rewrapping themselves around his body from theirs.

"Thanks, Houtai," Mikoto said, glaring at them.

"What happened?" Gahiji asked the girl. "What in the Kazekage's name was that?"

"Smart bombs, Maruko calls them. Then I hit them on the floor, they go to the nearest warm thing," Mikoto said. "That's why I covered you in his Dust. It got no name now, but once we've got the kinks out of things..."

"You used experimental equipment on us?" Aizesu growled loudly.

"Well, I think it worked," she replied, pointing outside. "You gonna check it out?"

Once outside, they saw three smoking bodies.

"You killed them!" Aizesu exclaimed, poking the bodies.

"No, they're alive," Naruto muttered, looting their belongings. They had three items on the list that the others did not have. He remembered his previous Chuunin exams. "We ought to go to the Kazekage's office."

"But shouldn't we get more of these?" Gahiji asked.

"There will be ambushes. People are heading there from all over Suna to bring their prizes back. Last time when I did this, my team and I were running out of time, so we had to find people to ambush us—"

"Wait, you _wanted_ to get ambushed?"

"It was faster than setting a trap, but we have some time," Naruto said. This time, he was going to do the ambushing.

* * *

Gahiji was, by far, not the smartest person in the Sand. Even in just the Red Sand. He wasn't smart, but he _was_ considered somewhat witty. Give him a simple math problem, and it'll take him hours to solve it. Insult him, and he'll throw an entire library's worth of comments right back at you. It was this talent of his that nearly ruined their third ambush. It was later that night. Much later. Normal Sunagakure villagers would have stayed inside. It got cold at night, and the wind always picked up the sand just to throw it in one's face. Irritating, really, but the genins in the Chuunin Exams put up with it.

This was, after all, another step forward to becoming a chuunin, which, to Naruto, meant one more step towards becoming the Hokage.

"Great," Gahiji said to Aizesu. They were the ones on watch as Mikoto, Houtai, and Naruto slept. It was almost common knowledge that these two worked as well together in combat as much as they fought each other in peacetime. Unfortunately, no one had regarded this fact as they had drawn straws to decide who would have to wake up. "Just seven more of these god damn things and we're through with all of this junk!"

"Aw, tired already, Giji-kun?" Aizesu sneered. "I thought you'd last longer."

"Little bitch and cat companion," he replied, "you should know that I can last aaaaall night long with you." He leaned close to her mockingly when...

When her cat Nyaasu decided that he was getting _waaay_ too close to her owner and attacked him. Jumping at him fiercely, Gahiji howled and made a strangled sound. He clutched his face. Three dotted lines bled across his nose.

"Nyaaaaah! You stupid cat! My face! My beautiful, perfectly sculpted face! I'll kill it and skin it and eat it and wear it and kill it agai—!"

Aizesu kicked him in the face to shut him up and the rest of the team tackled poor Gahiji to the ground, grabbing his arms and covering his mouth, but the damage was done and one of the approaching teams.

"There goes out secret attack," Houtai said, as calm as usual as another team below spotted them. Three girls from the Hidden Village of the Stone.

"Move it!" Mikoto said. "Back-Up Plan B!" They spread out. Naruto moved towards the other side while Gahiji dropped straight down from the building with the initiative.

_Bishounen no jutsu!_ Gahiji's eyes lit up, his hair blew in the wind, and the mere air around him seemed to glow. Yes, this was the effect to the dreaded...BISHOUNEN NO JUTSU! It was, in effect, nearly as powerful as the Oiroke no Jutsu itself. The Stone girls stared in awe of his appearance. Meanwhile, somewhere in the darkness, Aizesu groaned and Houtai sweatdropped. Well...it _was_ a good diversion, at least.

This gave Gahiji several moments to prepare every move for his next step. His Bishounen no jutsu would be enough to give him a minute in preparation for their plan. He hooked up the radio next to his ear.

Gahiji considered himself lucky he faced three girls rather than guys, but sighed at the thought that they were only women of the Stone village. Girls from the Leaf and the Mist were so much more beautiful and... shapely. Stone women were built like a...built like a rock. A rock chiseled into the shape of a patchy-haired gorilla. Like a stone monkey. Iron monkey! Haha.

He mentally kicked himself, frowing and forcing his one track mind back onto, er, track. No time for daydreaming and goofing off now.

Ordinarily, Gahiji would never strike a beautiful woman, let alone three. Luckily for him, they weren't beautiful (in fact, they were _far_ from it). And if he tried hard enough, he could pretend they were men.

Five...four...three...two...one... And there goes Naruto. It was a two-on-three battle, featuring a Sand shinobi and a Leaf shinobi against three ugly as hell Amazon women! Er...Hidden Rock kunoichi. Gahiji found himself stuck in too-close-for-comfort combat with a particularly large woman while the new guy was handling the other two with three remarkably solid looking Bunshins. He even managed to turn his bunshins into some rather corporeal weapons of his own. Corporeal...that was a funny word.

A smart rap on the head reminded Gahiji that he needed to get his mind back to the fight.

"Ow..." he muttered. "You hit like a man..."

Gahiji knew this type of fighter. He wasn't smart enough to consciously analyze the strengths and weaknesses of this woman, but he knew what it was going to take to fend her of. Crazy women...

No, he wasn't really doing any thinking at all. That's what the little voice in his head was for.

"Theretheretheretherethere!" Aizesu shouted in his earpiece. "You missed the chance, you loser! Bad defense! Block left. Block head! Hit him in the crotch!"

"It's a _woman_, you idiot!" Gahiji said. "A she! And SHE's got nothing there!"

"..." There was a brief moment of silence in his earpiece as Aizesu digested that new bit of information. "Oh."

"Yes, '_oh_'," Gahiji said, feeling rather irritated. Of course, he couldn't really blame her for her mistakes. It was an easy one to make. These women of the Rock were too manly. Maybe she took steroids. That would make sense, because women just weren't built to look like champion weight lifters. Or at least, in Gahiji's opinion, they shouldn't be. Ugh.

"Don't, 'yes, oh' me, Giji!" Aizesu growled. "Did Uzumaki do it?"

"Don't know."

"Then who has it?"

"Not sure."

"Then what—?"

"I'm _busy_ fighting a freaking as giant woman, Ai," Gahiji said. "Ah...shit." The big lady's stone stick hit him upside the head.

Gahiji saw pretty colors!

Had he been a bit closer, his head probably would have been cracked open. For some reason, this woman reminded him of a caveman. Er, woman. With a stone club, although her weapon was more like a blunt spear. Whatever technique she must have used to make it, she probably had not completely mastered it anyway.

All of a sudden, bandages wrapped around his arms and began to drag him backward. Both he and his enemy looked rather surprised, but for Gahiji, this was a pleasant surprise. But instead of just dragging him as Houtai would have probably preferred to have done just to do it, the bandages continued to lengthen, completely encasing Gahiji in thick layers.

What the hell was Houtai thinking? As usual, the older genin had neglected to his him breathing passages through his nose and mouth. He was going to suffocate like that! Gahiji writhed in the bandages, feeling uncomfortably mummified (only he kept his organs to himself, thank you) until he heard screaming. He grew stiff, not knowing if he really wanted to escape his cocoon.

It was the kunoichi from the Hidden Rock Village. What was going? Even the bandages, with Houtai's chakra strengthening the fabric, grew warm. This couldn't be Mikoto's...Flame Scent. He couldn't see with Houtai's bandages covering his face. He felt himself being dragged and suddenly felt a brief sensation of behind held upside down.

Suddenly, he was unwrapped and fell to the ground, sitting on the roof of one of the buildings nearby the Kazekage's office where he had been fighting by just earlier. Once dropped, Gahiji sat up straight, clutching his head.

"Ooow..." he groaned. That gorilla girl hit _hard_. He frowned, smelling burn flesh, hair, and other things. Looking down from the roof, he saw the girls from far away, clutching their faces and covering burnt clothes. Pity. The girls might not have been too pretty, but their clothes were. Meanwhile, crouched over a pile his bandages, Houtai looked somewhat more disturbed than usual.

There was only a subtle 'thump' as a warning that Aizesu arrived, carrying Nyaasu on her shoulder. "

"What the hell was that?" she said loudly.

"I don't know," Gahiji said. "What happened?"

"That was _not_ Mikoto's old Flame Scent that did_ that_," Aizesu said, staring pointedly at Houtai's singed bandages. "Because her Flame scent couldn't even manage to warm that."

"What's flame scent?" Naruto asked, clambering onto the side of the building. He grinned, hardly breaking a sweat. Gahiji glared at him, but it went unnoticed in the dark.

"It's a powder I use," Mikoto said cheerfully from behind them. "If you breathe it in, you breathe out fire. Kinda burns your throat, and it won't kill you unless you're constantly breathing it in for too long. Like, five seconds. It also burns skin. But that, people, was not the old flame scent. It's a newer version Mariku and I got. Version 2.0, but I call it Corrosion scent. It doesn't make flame, but it melts things. It might cause a fire if you toss it on something flammable or something though. I call it... Corrosion Scent!"

"It nearly burnt through my bandages," Houtai complained, looking somewhat disgruntled. The chakra shield kept it relatively neat looking, but any more and he'd have trouble conserving his chakra. He rewrapped it around his arms, not wanting to waste any more chakra than he needed to.

"Well they're not ruined," Mikoto replied flippantly. "No harm done, right? Anyway, I'm having 'Riku and 'Roko make more. 'Riku says I have enough to last four tournaments! I also upgraded the rest of my arsenal."

"Oh joy," Aizesu muttered.

"I know! You haven't seen anything yet!"

"This is somewhat fear-provoking," Gahiji said.

"What else did you make?" Houtai asked warily.

Mikoto grinned. "Wait and see and pray that you don't end up fighting me in the exams."

"...Hn, whatever," he muttered, giving her a dark glare.

"You see, it's when you look at me like that that I get scared you might decide to kill me in my sleep," Mikoto said, sweatdropping.

"You know, I think I just might do that," Houtai said, dropping the bandages on the ground as they slithered up onto his legs. She was right. There weren't completely useless. Still usable, just not as strong and pretty as they were before.

"Sometimes, I find it hard to believe that Mikoto's survived so long with him sleeping across the hall," Gahiji said, scratching his head and crossing off items off the list.

"They live with each other?"

"We _all _live with each other," Aizesu said, "And I really wish we didn't."

"Dorms reserved for those from the Red Sand," Gahiji explained. "They don't really want us mingling with others. We might get beat up, being the 'evil of Sunagakure'. Hey, how many of these things do we have left to get?"

"Three. Let's just finish this tomorrow. We've been looking for those three for ages. At least we have a few extras of these. I don't really know if Gaara-kichi wants us to get them all and turn them all in as a group, as our own, or

"Looking through his papers again?"

"That's what they're there for."

"I wonder how Gaara puts up with you."

"I wonder how Aizesu puts up with _you_. And the other way around, I suppose. I mean, you both almost equally hate each other right? The difference is that you also love all women, and she might actually just be one. Meanwhile, Gaara-kichi just looooves me!"

Complete silence. Naruto frowned. It didn't sure look like love to _him_.

"Anyway," Aizesu said, "what did those... girls have?" she asked Naruto.

"Hn? Oh, yeah..." He went through the bags he lifted from the girls and checked only a few items off the lists.

Gahiji took Naruto's envelope. "What the fuck! We've been at this all day long and we're still missing three of these goddamn items? This is bullshit! we're only getting doubles each time we go at someone and I'm getting tired of this stupid shit! We need...dragon skin, ki-lin horn, and a desert lily. Okay, wait, in the Sand? How are we supposed to find a _lily_ in the desert, a dragon skin in the _real world_, and a ki-lin horn?"

"Giji-kun's got a point," Aizesu said. "Dragon's and ki-lin's don't exist, and I've _never_ heard of a desert lily before. And we have too many doubles, but not enough for all the ones we need. We're missing, like, about forty-five items from the looks of it. Pretty impressive, since there are a hundred and fifteen, but we're going to end up fighting for each other for it."

Naruto sighed. "You know, I'm tired too," he said. "And I think I have a solution for the dragon skin, the ki-lin horn, and the lack of doubles, but it's past midnight and we should get some sleep."

"Is it really safe to do that in the middle of exams?" Mikoto wondered.

"I'm trying something new here," Naruto said, "So I want to have all of my chakra reserves ready. What we should focus on is getting safe...shelter, I guess."

"Shelter," Houtai repeated. "In the _desert_."

"We're allowed to sleep in beds, right?" Aizesu asked.

"Why are we listening to this guy?" Gahiji asked. "He's younger than us!"

"Not me," Mikoto said.

"He took the exam before," Houtai said.

"And he didn't pass," Gahiji reminded.

"He still remembers what he did last time," Aizesu said. "It makes sense to get rest and hope that whatever Naruto's planning works out. Do you really think we can get forty-five more items before we pass out from exhaustion?"

"But we don't even know what he's planning!" he replied. Well...that was true. They all looked at Naruto.

"No worries," Naruto said with a grin, although it remained unseen in the darkness. "I've got everything planned out. And while you guys were arguing about why you were listening to me, I know a place we can hide out that's safer than _any_ of your dorms. Safer, actually, considering that, according to you guys, nearly everyone in the Sand hates your guts."

"And where's that?" Aizesu asked.

"Why, Gaara-sama's place, of course."

* * *

Bonus 'Chapter' of Hogwarts Day: "Uh oh..."  
Anko Screws up, Pre-Operation Hogsmeade Mission

"Asuma, Asuma, let down your hair!" Anko shouted up to the Divination tower. (just making fun of Divination tower and Rapunzel...)

"Hair," Snape repeated blankly.

"Er, let down the ladder, you stupid monkey!" Anko yelled, amending her sentence.

"I don't have a ladder down here!" Asuma replied from above, sticking his head out of the trap door.

Anko stepped forward. "What are you talking about? Then how did you get up—eeeaaaauuugh!"

A ladder shot up from out of the ground with sudden abruptness that would have sent any other special jounin jumping back, but Anko was no normal special jounin. She was the tokubetsu jounin who was often described to have the personality of a certain blond demon host with whiskers and blond hair. And, of course, being somewhat similar to Naruto, Anko only luck in the midst of battle and lacked the ability to completely avoid the rapidly rising ladder rungs.

She herself had jumped out of the way, but her cloak was not so fortunate, as it had gotten caught on the top rungs and sent her flying upside down by the hem of her robes, riding the rising ladder at an alarming speed until she reached the top of the divination tower. Asuma was lucky enough to have gotten out of the way. Had he kept his head in the trapdoor, he would have been kicked in the face by Anko's sandaled feet.

"Anko, are you alright?" Asuma asked, helping her up from the ladder.

"Yeah," she muttered. "Thanks."

"Good, then you can tell me why Severus Snape has decided to follow the person he hates most at Hogwarts all the way to the Divination tower?"

"Hey, he doesn't hate me the most. Haven't you ever heard of Harry Potter?"

"Believe me, from the souns of it, you are giving Potter a run for his money. And the Weasley twins too. None of the other professors have ever heard of anyone insulting him and verbally attacking him as much as you do and getting away from it relatively unhexed. And no one ever actually physically attacked him or bitchslapped him either."

"Hehehe, yeah..." Anko smiled, relishing the memory until Asuma asked the dreaded question.

"So _why_ is he here?"

"Er..."

"He knows."

"Not about jutsus. He thought we were on a date, but I said we weren't because, no offense, Asuma, I would never go out with a guy like you. You're too boring."

"And you're too excitable. You're a grown woman, but you've got the mind of a sugar-high eight year-old. Kinda like Konohamaru when he was littler... Spiritually, going out with you would almost make me a pedophile."

"...A _what_?"

'_My point exactly..._' Asuma mused. "Nevermind," he said.

"Uuuuh...anyway, so he decided to tag along with me so I don't get lost again and keep an eye on me. Why me? Why not you?"

"I believe the answer to that question is obvious, after what Severus says about you during staff meetings."

"There are staff meetings here?" Anko practically shouted.

"Shh, Trelawney might hear you."

"And she didn't before?" It was odd that the quack seer Asuma was constantly moaning on and on about was nowhere to be seen.

"I drugged her tea supply. I don't think she'll wake up anytime this week, but best be safe and not let her wake up."

"Right. So why haven't I heard about the staff meetings?"

"You weren't invited."

"And you were?"

"I'm not as inattentive or as distracting or 'distractible' as you are. You also tend to leak like a cracked pot."

"I do not!" Anko cried indignantly.

"Hm..." Asuma glanced at the irritated Potions professor on the ground level. "Gee, I wonder what _he's_ doing here."

"Hmph, whatever," she scoffed. "There's only this one time. I'm _not _leaky."

"Whatever. You think Severus wants us down there? He looks a bit impatient."

"Nah," Anko said. "Let's stay up here and see how long he'll wait until he a) gives up and leaves or b) come up here and drag us down."

"He can't drag someone down on a ladder," Asuma said, lighting another cigarrete. "Wizards obey the law of gravity."

"Then he'll come up and _I'll_ drag _him_ down."

"Alright, alright, let's go before it gets dark," Asuma said. "Women and children first," he said pointing at the ladder. "Young ones should be the first down."

Anko snorted and shoved him forward with her foot. "I'd say it's kinder to let the little old ladies out first. Go ahead, Asuma-baasan," she said.

Asuma scowled at his younger companion as she nudged him down with her dirts sandals, leaving foot imprints on his rear. Asuma climbed down the ladder with Anko following above him. He looked up and suddenly stopped, wide-eyed, dead in his tracks. He didn't even move when Anko accidentally stepped on his fingers. No reaction...

Anko looked down at him, irritated. "What on earth are you stopping for, you stupid monkey?"

"...Purple, Anko?" Asuma asked in amazement.

"Purple what?" Anko asked testily. "All robes here gotta be all black. And what are you staring at—?" Anko stopped in mid-sentence, her eyes wide as well. She wasn't pale or sickly. Instead, she turned a deep shade of red when she realized what Asuma had really seen when he looked up. She gritted her teeth in anger. "Assuuuummaaaa," she growled. "You have _five seconds_ to stop looking _up my skirt_ and _get off this ladder_."

Wiping his nosebleed and hastily climbing down the ladder as fast as he could possibly carry himself, Asuma attempted to escape her wrath. Unfortunately for him, she had the advantage of gravity as she released the steps of the ladder and landed on his face feet first, knocking him down. Asuma was a jounin and Anko was a special jounin. Asuma was older, stronger, less stupid and more experience in combat, so just how was she able to do this again?

Sexy no jutsu was Naruto's undefeatable technique. So far, there had been none who were able to defeat him as he did this, and that was mainly because of the side effects: a nosebleed, dizziness, and occasionally a loss of consciousness. Looking up Anko's skirt and seeing what he saw had given Asuma similar symptoms, therefore, he was critically weakened and given the most humiliating defeat as she knocked him down the ladder.

And, while Anko landed lightly on her bottom, Asuma fell headfirst onto the ground.

"What. Was. That?" Snape asked Anko, looking somewhat disturbed. All he had heard from their conversation on the ladder were the faint words, 'purple', 'Asuma' and 'get off ladder'.

"He's a jackass!" Anko growled.

"And that warrants his death?" he asked her, looking at Asuma's body.

Anko froze and turned around. "...HOLY FUCKING HELL, I KILLED ASUMA!" she cried, clutching her head, wide-eyed in shock.

Snape groaned and checked Asuma's pulse. "Amazing...he's still alive and there's not a single broken bone..." Snape said.

Anko nearly collapsed. "Oooooh myyyy goooood, he's alive," she said, sighing in relief.

Snape frowned, waving his wand and conjuring a stretcher beneath Asuma. Giving it another wave, the stretcher flew towards the infirmary at a speed that impressed Anko and left her wondering how Asuma didn't fall off.

"So," Snape said, "I'm curious to know several things. One: do you still plan to carry out your plans at Hogsmeade? Two: what happened on the ladders? Three: Asuma had landed on his head, you landed on his forehead, yet all he had was a nosebleed. Why the nosebleed? And four: how in Merlin's name did Asuma get away with a nosebleed when it was his neck that was supposed to be broken?"

Anko frowned at him. "I'm sorry, you lost me at two. One at a time?"

"Are you still going to Hogsmeade?"

"Mm, maybe. I should...but I just KO'ed Asuma and I think everyone else is busy and if I go with Gai, one of us will die."

"...Why did you kick Assistant Sarutobi off of the ladders?"

"Er...next question."

Snape looked at her.

She looked back at him, getting all red again. "I said _next question_."

"Why did he have a nosebleed?"

"...That question is like the second. Next."

"You'll have to answer at least _one question_."

"Bite me, doughboy."

"Doughboy?"

"You're pasty. Like dough. I guess you'd be doughman though. Or doughbat. Hehehe, Doughbat..."

Snape glared menacingly at her, only to have it bounce off of Anko's own glare. Hm...now that he thought about it... purple something, looking up on a ladder, red-face, and the traditional angry blush...oooooh. Now he got it.

"Fine: How did Asuma _not_ die from the fall?"

"In Japan, we wizards learn to fall right."

"...I believe 'falling correctly' requires being on the ground and being pushed, tripped, or clumsy."

"...We learn to fall right from the sky?"

"You, girl, are an idiot."

"You, man, are _really_ white. I'm getting you one of those tans you spray on from a can for Christmas."

"You go back to wherever you came from and that will be a good enough present for me."

"On second thought, I think I'll give the whole school a break and toss you off on some godforsaken deserted island so you can tan yourself. And then I'll take over Potions and the world and everyone can be happy that you're gone and they can relax without getting zapped by your deathglare. Yes, the one you are giving me right now."

"I believe that you could not control a classroom, let alone the world. With you taking over Potions, I'm sure half the students will be in the infirmary waiting room by the end of the day."

"You wanna bet?"

"I fear for their lives. I would rather not test out your bet, and I do strongly look down on gambling."

"You shouldn't look down so much. When the object of your attention looks up, he'll find himself looking up two large black holes, and I'm not talking about your eyes."

"You have the greatest tendency to exaggerate on the tiniest of human errs. My nose is not that large."

"I 'beg to differ'."

"Don't use words you don't understand."

"I know what it means to beg."

"And the word 'to differ'?"

"... To differ...er...that's two words. You're stupid."

"Are you conceding defeat?"

"...?" -

"Are you admitting defeat?"

"No! Not to you!"

There was a brief moment of silence. "What are we doing standing around here?" Snape muttered. "Come on," he said, rudely pulling her sleeve.

"Aaw, I don't wanna go to detention! You suck!" Anko said as he dragged her down the halls.

"I thought you wanted to go to Hogsmeade," he sneered.

"Eh? I do, I do!" Anko said. Sure, with Snape around, she couldn't do any jutsus, but she'd still be doing her mission and the only thing the others would yell at her for would be for kicking Asuma a hundred feet down the Divination tower and putting him in the infirmiry! Alright! ((they were awfully calm, despite the fact that Anko nearly killed Asuma...))

* * *

**(1) Husani Gahiji, Furoshiki Houtai, Mineko Aizesu, and Makoto Mikoto: **I chose these names for specific purposes. -First of all, there is Husani Gahiji. This is an Egyptian name that I looked up and just love. Not that it's a particularly pretty name like Sakura or Shino or something like that, but it just...fits. First of all, there's his surname. Husani. It means handsome, and that's what he is! Or, supposed to be, for those who might not be into this kind of guy. Well, dark skin and dark hair. Almost looks Indian with thick eyeliner like the others (minus Houtai). Gahiji means hunter. Additional info: he is a taijutsu type of guy. Sooo, his name could be taken in two ways. A hunter of beautiful people (cough-women-cough) _oooor _a handsome hunter. Or just hunter and handsome that happened to be named on one guy, but yeah. Anyway, I also liked the way his name could be, like, 'Giji-kun'. Sounds cute, although only Aizesu calls him that. I'm also thinking of making him the bastard son of some leader of the country to make things interesting, but not really since he's not going to be a majorly important character anyway. Because then, it would make sense that, even though he remains somewhat neglected by his family, his father is still somewhat courteous enough to give the other secret son a few gifts in gold, hence the numberous gold necklaces and earring. Oh, I mentioned him being taijutsu earlier, but I guess he's not really a taijutsu specialist or whatever. Actually, like Mikoto, he's pretty useless without his weapon: a staff. Not just a stick. I'm thinking one of those Egyptian staffs with a little hookie thing on the end of it. Or maybe it's something for a goat herder... Anyway, if anyone knows what it's called, please tell. Otherwise, it's going to be 'the staff' or the 'Egyption staff' or the 'hooked staff' or whatever.  
-Next is Furoshiki Houtai. In Japanese, Furoshiki means 'wrapping cloth' or 'cloth wrapper'. This comes from the fact that he goes around wearing all these bandages under his clothes and stuff. All wrapped up. He doesn't really do genjutsu, although he can do basic genjutsus, unlike the poor, really stupid Giji-kun. He's the only one in the group who doesn't wear thick eyeliner and stuff. He's the more serious one and doesn't chase after skirts and pretty faces. He is, basically, Gahiji's opposite. Serious, strong, and he's got a clan 'gift' with paper and cloth. **This character is dedicated to MECHMAN123 for donating this idea to my fic**. He's got an older sister. She's stopped at chuunin. Anyway, the basic clan gift is to control paper and cloth with chakra control. But ribbons is too girly for Houtai, so he uses bandages, which often prove to be more useful than paper and ordinary cloth. For one thing, his bandages were specially upgraded by the Makotos and can be controled with the minimum use of chakra. They are also very strong, stretchable, and can cut. It's kind of like what Madoka can do, but Madoka uses strings. Actually, it's a lot like Madoka. Hm... Anyway, Houtai means "bandage" or "dressing". YEah  
-Mineko Aizesu (and Nyaasu): Mineko is a name I got from "Mineko Okhami", the penname for the author of Dragon Knights, a really confusing manga series with funny 'sharp' drawings that I think are really good. Anyway, Mineko is her surname... Yeah. Aizesu is just a name I made up off the top of my head. Well, no not really. The inpiration for this name would be Isis, the Egyptian goddess (also known as a 'god-mother'). So, like Marco-Maruko and Malik-Mariku, Isis goes to Aizesu. If you hadn't noticed already, Japanese names don't really end in consonants. Anyway, Aizesu is superstitious and believes in reincarnation. Which brings us to her cat, Nyaasu. She thinks her cat is the reincarnation of her mother. Oh, and if you haven't noticed, the cat _is_ oddly overprotective of Aizesu... So anyway, the Mineko clan is known for...well, raising cats. Maybe I should have made her a Minezuka. It would have been kinda funny and ironic. In fact, Aizesu's techniques are basically similar to Kiba's. All in all, Aizesu is somewhat bitchy, complains a lot, and may, perhaps, have a thing for Gahiji. I'm not sure. Now that I think about it, she's like a weak, less violent version of Tayuya. Didn't mean that... Anyway, she has above average taijutsu (fights with her cat and stuff, yeah?). The reason why she didn't fight the Stone girls was this: first come first served. Gahiji has a sixth sense for sensing women, therefore he was able to get there first. I know, cat-girls are overrated, but I couldn't help it. It was in the theme.  
-Mikoto... Her name has no significance to her character. Except for the fact that she hates it and being called by it. She sucks at hand-to-hand combat (it hurts her hands...), and she's only capable of doing basic ninjutsu and genjutsu. It's not that she's untalented, but for a girl with her energy, she...likes to do a lot of things. Unfortunately, she prefers to spend her time experimenting with her brother and sister on new devices, like her scents. Oh, but the name she replaced on her Chuunin Exam application "Yuuka" means scent, I think. Can't remember...should look it up or something...  
By the way, Mikoto's twelve, Aizesu's just turned fourteen, Gahiji is fifteen and Houtai's sixteen. Pretty old for the chuunin exams, but they've been neglecting the testings. However, now that it's actually taking place in the Sand, they're taking it now. They're like foreign students in the Sand. At first, it was just a two-man team with juts Houtai and Aizesu, the first to come, but then Mikoto came and after that Gahiji.  
(And if you hadn't noticed, these kids all came from the Red Sand without parents and stuff. You can't really tell with Houtai and stuff, and the Makotos never mention their parents)

I really wanted to add more characters from other villages so they can all fight each other later, but that's too much work and I'm tired. So here are the main-er characters in the exam who will all, hopefully, pass. By the way, I'm also going to give you _my _opinion why Naruto was not made a chuunin, even though he BEAT the HYUGA PODIGY.  
((phew, that was long...))

**(2)** **Bishounen no jutsu**: Inspired by a spontaneous thought and my sister's boyfriends idea if Gundam something with Duo and Quatre and other pretty-boys. It was the Gundam made as fanservice. Yeah. Also inspired by Naruto's Orioke no Jutsu. While Naruto's Sexy no Jutsu is more effective on guys and repulses girls, Gahiji's Bishounen no jutsu paralyzes girls and confuses guys ('What...is he doing? He's...twinkling and sprouting roses out of nowhere.')

* * *

**My Thinking Corner**

(Huddles in the corner) I keep neglecting Vikki! I feel so bad for him... He doesn't really have much of a role to play yet. I was going to have a subchap "Vikki's Adventures" instead of "Uh oh..." Anko Screws Up, but I did a lot of it where he tests out his genjutsu and does the henge and ends up causing all these problems in Sunagakure as Mariku or Temari or something (girls body, gotta be a theoretically male animal running around in a naked girls body; naked because Vikki doesn't understand the concept and use of human clothing). But...halfway through it all, I began to lose my steam. But that's not what I hated the most. You see, I did almost all of this at San Antonio during Winter Break at my uncle's house. I left the computer at home on as I always do. I was almost done with the entire chapter, so I ended up almost finishing it all there. So, I go home and, by stupid instinct, I press save changes on the stupid computer! And then I ended up wasting it all and stuff and I'm like, "..." for five minutes before silently going to bed. At four in the day. So all in all, I had spent about four hours awake that day and spent the rest of it sleeping and waking up occasionally to play game. Like tetris. I've been obsessed with Tetris recently.

Anyway, schools started again. I meant to update as fast as I could during Winter Holidays but ended up slacking off and sleeping, recovering from all-nighters cramming roughly fifteen weeks worth of classes for finals... I am relieved to say I passed, although I'm certain I got several Cs. (whimpers to self) I'm gonna die... What sucked was that, after spending up a lot of time awake studying for those damn tests, I fell asleep and ended up rushing the rest of a few of my tests away. O.o (twitches) I'm really gonna die.

In any case, let's move on to more important business. I had mean to give Naruto later a new weapon as a gift from the Makotos. I meant to basically rip off the Kougan Anki belonging to Kaoru from an anime and manga series called Flame of Recca. The Kougan Anki changes shape. Like a Rubix cube puzzle, only more... adaptable is the best word I can come up for it. The weapon's first mode is a glaive (or, in Japanese, the _naginata_). It's metal, although it's a yellow weapon thing and resembles a mix of a glaive and something from Soul Caliber. The second mode of the Kougan Anki is a kusarigama. Basically, a sickle on a chain. Only a bit prettier than that. The next mode is boring looking. It's pretty much a giant pair of scissors, although it's pretty useful for catching weapons (like a sword) and twisting it out of the enemy's hand or pulling it away. The shape after that is that of a really big boomerang. Think, a normal glaive can be six feet long, but this one is really short for a glaive (in fact, it shouldn't even be called a glaive). Maybe about four feet, but think about it, a boomerang that's four feet long... Anyway, the last mode is a bow and arrow.

To see all of this, go here:

www. juliestudio. com/ anime/ koganei/ anki/ index. html

Soooo, anyway, I like the idea of giving Naruto a changing weapon, but I hate copying ideas that are both unique yet officially 'taken'. Anyway, what's the use of having a weapon like that? Naruto would just use Kage Bunshins and Henges and stuff like that.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Gaara's Talk  


Pairings: Naruto X Hinata, Shikamaru X Temari, Neji X Tenten, Kakashi X Kurenai, Hermione X Ron, Gaara X Sakura, Draco X Pansy, Sasuke X Ino

* * *

**Flashback**

_Madoka had, once again, chosen to leave the inn without Kurogane's guidance. Instead, she had left with the dog to explore around the village a little longer. Kurogane grumbled irritably by himself in the inn. He hated leaving the inn and taking a walk in the crowds of Hogsmeade. Just as much as he hated that Madoka was choosing that Snuffles over him! Sure, Snuffles was really a man, but Madoka didn't know that. Still, Kurogane did, and he hated it. Of course, he could just tell her not to leave the room, but it just wouldn't seem fair._

_So, Kurogane let Madoka leave daily while he sat and read newspapers, wizard and muggle alike. He would have to remember to pay for his shinobi subscription as well and look through newspapers once he returned to his own world._

_Having finished several weeks worth of newspapers, Kurogane was now...bored. Really bored. He finally left the room, looking around. It was the weekend. According to the lady who owned a pub, Hogwarts students often visited during the weekend. Kurogane cursed his luck that the day he finally decided to leave his domain was the day that it was most crowded in the village. He readjusted his hitai-ate band that he wore as a belt. It really wasn't a hitai-ate band anymore. Just a narrow strip of black clothe; he had removed the telltale metal plate that identified him as a shinobi from the Sound._

_Looking up, he saw a blond girl leading a familiar dark-haired Sharingan user around Hogsmeade. Uchiha Sasuke. First a traitor to Konoha, now a traitor to the Sound as well. He was not a Jinchuuriki, but perhaps he could be of some use in the future. Uchiha had a blonde latched onto his arm. At first sight, the boy looked very uncomfortable. But taking a better look at him, you could almost see the guy was actually enjoying himself._

_Looking around, he saw several other shinobi. He almost didn't see the bigger one. He was busy pressing his face in some poor girl's, although she did seem to be enjoying it. He probably would have looked like any other normal wizard if it weren't for the glimpse of face paint he wore on his face. Kabuki. Kurogane vaguely remembered Naruto talking about his friend's older brother, who had a suspicious obsession with puppets._

_Now that he thought about it, this Kabuki guy's younger brother was the Kazekage of the Sand. And the chuunin exams were probably just starting at this very moment. Kurogane shrugged. Until Naruto returned, it was not his business._

_However... there were lots of shinobi in Hogsmeade today. He spotted two others before realizing a big mistake. Kurogane may not have been wearing the metal plate on his hitai-ate, but Madoka was. He mentally kicked himself for never telling her to take it off. Kurogane stopped walking and closed his eyes, listening for her voice._

_"...Padma said she saw his face..."_

_"...It's 50 galleons for whoever gets a picture of him...!"_

_"...That Uchiha and the Gryffindork. Disgusting..."_

_"...I can't imagine a Slytherin and a mudblood..."_

_"...Cedric's thinking of entering the Triwizard Tournament."_

_"...Word says the Dark Lord is hiring ninjas."_

_"Ninjas? You've got to be kidding me! Hah!"_

_"Quiet, you fool!"_

_'And as if on cue..._

_"AAAH, DON'T GO HURTING MY SNUFFLES YOU BIG BULLY!" The volume of Madoka's voice was enough to make him wince. Although several passersby watched him in confusion, he ignored them and ran straight in the direction of Madoka's voice. Kurogane scowled as he moved his belt/clothe, tying it over his face to keep it hidden. Just an extra precaution, should Uchiha show up and recognize him. Doubtful, since whenever Uchiha was around, Kurogane was not._

_He was right. She had encountered another shinobi. This one was from the Leaf as well._

_"'Snuffles'..." he heard someone mutter skeptically. "Definitely not Sirius then..."_

_Someone knew who Sirius was? As far as Kurogane knew it, Sirius was on the run from 'Auras'. Lights? It always confused Kurogane, but he never asked for an explanation. Either way, if he was on the run, then how come people could almost recognize him? Idiot mutt probably let everyone know he was an escapee from jail._

_"He'd never lower himself to such a name," a second person said. Snuffles sneezed._

_"Somebody stop those dogs! They shouldn't fight, the dogs'll get hurt!"_

_"I don't think so, Hermione. Look."_

_"...Akamaru! Take them seriously, they're with the Sound!" the owner of the dog whined._

_Kurogane rushed by Madoka's side. Bystanders jumped at the sight of Kurogane, as if he had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Ironically, another shinobi from the Leaf appeared._

_"Kiba...starting fights here is not a most intelligent thing to do," the newer, significantly taller Leaf said. Kurogane glared at him, although there was very little change from his defend-Madoka face and his glaring face. Not only was this person from the Leaf but... he was as tall as Kurogane! From the sound of his voice, he was probably around Naruto's age, but he was way too tall! The unfairness of it all._

_"It would be wise to leave and report this occurrence to Tsunade, for there is a greater enemy at hand," the newer one said. He was covered in two heavy jackets and wore black sunglasses._

_"Madoka..." Kurogane said, holding her shoulder to let her know where he was. He glanced meaningfully at the dog. "...And Snuffles. Do not be hasty and pick fights with strangers. We of the Sound are not so... unorthodox. Now, I—"_

_He heard flapping wings at him and moved his arm out as a falcon landed on it with a letter tied to its leg. A message...? He opened the letter and skimmed through it, only to crumple it up in anger._

_"What is it, Kuro-kun?" Madoka asked him, not seeing his irritated expression, but noticing his sudden anger._

_"We need to leave," he said curtly. "And talk. And do something about your dog."_

_"You aren't going to eat him are you? I thought you were just jok—"_

_"I'm not eating that dog, Madoka."_

_"Oh, okay. Good, I was afra—" Having no patience for Madoka's small talk, Kurogane pulled on her arm and hefted her up, carrying her away on his shoulder quickly, followed by Snuffles. "Hey, you don't have to carry me you know... But you don't have to stop, I've been walking all day..."_

_Kurogane paused, remembering the two Leaf shinobi. He really didn't want to get into a fight. They were Naruto's friends... but he didn't want them to think he was running away from a fight either. "And we're not retreating!" he shouted to the two Leaf kids. "And if you ever even look at Madoka in a bad way again, I won't hesitate to cut off your legs and stick them on your head!" And then he turned around once again and left quickly._

_"Um...he's joking...!" Madoka said nervously, slung over his shoulder, as she was carried away. "...Honestly, he doesn't really do things like that...!" And they left..._

_The letter was from Orochimaru. Kurogane, Madoka, and Snuffles had returned to the inn, where Kurogane read it out loud to Madoka and Snuffles fell asleep on the couch._

Kurogane,  
It has been some time since I had last seen you. Unfortunately, this letter is addressed to your girl. You no longer require her assistance. In fact, I do believe you never really needed her in the first place. I require a shinobi with a pretty face, a cute damsel-in-distress look, and the most irritating personality in the world for a very important mission. So I thought about it, and thought, 'Who better than Madoka?' Of course, I will need your permission to borrow her first. Send it with the falcon. It will take Madoka to her new master. Don't worry. He is under oath not to harm her in any way, so you don't need to lose any sleep over her. Should she be harmed in any way, she'll just go back to you. I know how attached you are to this one. She will send as many letters to you as she wishes and is free to do almost anything she wants so long as she does not physically harm anyone against her new master's wishes.  
-Orochimaru-sama

_Kurogane reread the letter with increasing agitation. Who did Orochimaru think he was, taking Madoka away? Furthermore, it irritated him that Orochimaru felt that he could just 'borrow' Madoka with that pathetic excuse of a 'request'? He already knew that Kurogane wouldn't disobey an order._

_"Just send me away then," Madoka insisted. "I don't mind."_

_"Well I do," Kurogane said. "I don't want you serving anybody but me. The moment I ever take my eyes off of you, you always manage to get yourself into trouble and sometimes the most ridiculous situations!"_

_"I don't see any harm in letting me go. Orochimaru said that this guy isn't allowed to hurt me. I'm not that much use here anyway. You said so yourself: you're always helping me out of ridiculous and potentially embarrassing situations."_

_"Okay, then what about Snuffles?" Kurogane asked, pulling blindly at straws. _

_"I don't think I can take him along with me. Can you watch him if I go?" _

_"I don't even know how long you'll be gone." _

_"I can take care of myself just fine!" _

_"No you can't," Kurogane said. "That's what you said today before you got into a fight with that Konohagakure shinobi."_

_"But I can try!" Madoka replied. "Please, I want to try."_

_Kurogane sighed. "Fine. You know what? It's fine. You can go. ...If you don't want to be here, you don't have to be."_

_Madoka blinked, surprised. She expected a much longer argument._

_"I'll watch your stupid dog and you can go and stay gone as long as you want."_

_"...Are you jealous?"_

_"OF THE MUTT?" Kurogane shouted. _

_"Kuro-kun..."_

_"Oh, stop going 'Kuro-kun' all the time. It gets irritating."_

_"Okay!" Madoka said loudly. "I will leave then, and since you're so eager to get me outta here, you can sign my summoning scroll for me!" She stumbled blindly toward the door and slammed it shut, only to open it again and shout at him one last time: "And tonight, you're sleeping on the couch!" And she slammed it shut again, waking Snuffles up. The dog looked around, seeing that Madoka had just left without him._

_"What's up with that?" Sirius asked Kurogane, changing back into his normal form. _

_"I always sleep on the couch!" Kurogane said suddenly, snapping out of it._

_"...Huh?"_

_"Nothing," Kurogane said gruffly. _

_"Ah, I knew it," Sirius said, nodding wisely. "Sexual frustrations."_

_"Yeah, whatev—WHAT? No!_

_"Oh, okay then. Girl problems. I get it."_

_"Are girls the only thing you think of?" Kurogane growled. _

_"I think so," Sirius said thoughtfully. "Wait, no, I just thought of something else just now: thinking of whether I ever didn't think about girls. So what's wrong, kid?"_

_"Madoka wants to go off on her own work. My, uh... my boss has a job for her."_

_"And the problem is...?"_

_Kurogane took a deep breath. He picked up an ink brush as well as he spoke. A quill wasn't what he needed anyway. "I have no idea where it is, who she'll work for, and my boss is a fucking jackass of a snake so I can trust him to have some kind of hidden motive in this." He put on his eyeglasses and began to draw many complex designs on a long sheaf of parchment._

_"I see, but why don't you just trust her judgment in all of this?" Sirius asked, in full-psychologist mode._

_"Because...because she can't control her tongue and always hurts herself, running into walls and tripping over chairs just when she wants to save chak_—_energy. Because... she's blind for kag_—_Merlin's sake! Do you know how much trouble a blind, goofy, pretty, and friendly young girl can get into?"_

_"Can I just make one small comment?" _

_"Shoot."_

_"Shoot who?"_

_"...Just say it."_

_"You did just call her pretty, right? ...OW!" Kurogane threw a random object at Sirius. It just happened to be Madoka's comb, which scratched him. "Cruelty to animals!"_

_"Animals like you deserve to be punished," Kurogane muttered. "Get serious, Black!" _

_"I _am_ Sirius Black!" The effect of Kurogane's glare was lost through his glasses and the hair he tied up to keep his bangs out of his eyes._

_"Going for the demented schoolgirl look?" Sirius asked him with a grin._

_"One more word out of you and I'll convince Madoka to let me neuter you before she goes."_

_"Oh, the horror!" Sirius exlaimed, looking faint. _

_"Right, now hand me Madoka's comb."_

_"You aren't doing voodoo, are you? Because that's illegal Dark Magic."_

_"It's not voodoo, you idiot," Kurogane said. "It's...Japanese magic. Runes. Yeah."_

_"Runes? What are you doing?"_

_"I need to make two summoning scrolls. Summoning scrolls...transport us around. It's convenient for me."_

_"Transport? Like a Portkey?"_

_"I guess," Kurogane said. "I'll be leaving soon, and so will Madoka." He bit his thumb and drew a summoning charm. _Kuchiyose no jutsu!_ "Kouha, take this to Naruto. And you... falcon bird, take this back to wherever you came from."_

_"I don't get it..." Sirius said. _

_"We're going to leave in a day. Maybe two. I suggest you keep yourself out of trouble until I come back."_

**End of Flashback **

* * *

It was the next day that Kurogane and Madoka left. It was luck, as well, as things had not gone very smoothly that day. He had already sent the letters. One summoning scroll to whoever Madoka's new master was and another summoning scroll for Naruto, who was in the Sand. Once the scrolls were opened, they would be brought to the location of the opened scroll. He had attempted to explain it to Sirius Black while Madoka had left to let out some steam.

Being their last day, Madoka and Snuffles went on their last shopping trip together. Kurogane stayed inside as he always did. He was counting all the money he had to spar, as most of it was back at home in the Sound. He had converted the yen into the wizard currency at the small local bank of Hogsmeade. His fifty thousand yen became one hundred and three galleons, twelve sickles, and twenty-seven knuts. Not bad. He poured it all into his sack, which had some sort of spell on it so it could hold more than it appeared. After packing their clothes, he left the sack of money on the couch for the mutt.

With nothing to do, he sat around, drinking a cold cup of coffee reading the newspaper, as he did every morning, day, and night. But...he was bored. And restless. He cleaned the room. Twice. He rearranged the furniture four more times before finally giving up on comfort and leaving the room, sparkling clean.

Normally, when he was bored, Kurogane would train. But if he was summoned during training, he would be brought in all tired and sweaty, and he'd lose his dignity. Of course, he could always bathe, but if he was summoned then... he would have even less dignity

Therefore, Kurogane decided just to go for a walk to clear his head. He didn't like the way people always oggled at him when he left. Okay, so he was young, wandless, and wearing odd clothing, even for muggles, let alone wizards. It was not their business to follow him around everywhere he went and try to strike up a conversation. He didn't like the crowded village. At least the Sound didn't have many people. He also didn't like the fresh air. Too cool. Still, he hated being restless more than all of it combined. He passed by the 'Shrieking Shack' which, according to locals, was haunted by violent spirits. Kurogane listened in on it, but didn't hear anything. It was just an empty building. Stupid villagers.

Kurogane was somewhere in the middle of town, not really sure where he was, when he sensed another's presence. He hadn't felt it in a while, but he was sure that, whoever, this person was, he had met him once before. Kurogane turned around to find a kunai at his neck and a familiar woman about his height at the other end of it.

"Hm, I'd say you've got a pretty familiar face," the lady said. "You wouldn't happen to be from the Sound would you?"

"It's not your business where I am from," Kurogane said, glaring.

"Well then, Mr. Sound, you're charged with loitering around where you're not wanted," she said to him with a smirk.

"Right..." Kurogane muttered. He made the sign of the ram with his hands.

"_Onpa no Jutsu_!" (1)

* * *

Severus Snape was not a stupid person. And Anko Mitarashi was. Whatever mission she was to carry out before should have been postponed the moment her partner, Asuma, had been KO'ed. Yet he was able to get her to continue her mission with the tiniest use of manipulation. All he had to do was nudge her in the right direction, and she always played right into his hands, doing exactly what he needed to do. Except in the classroom. Although he would have a week of peace and torture for the Gryffindors, which he had missed out on ever since she had arrived.

However, it seemed that he had miscalculated. Instead of doing whatever she was going to do, Anko was running around Hogsmeade like a little girl on her first trip to Hogsmeade. This was actually her second.

Did Anko know that he had followed with the sole purpose of learning more about who she, Asuma, and the rest of the assistants? Did she know that he was collecting information on her and the others? Was she purposely preventing him from gathering and relevant data?

No. She was just having fun window shopping and dragging Severus alongside her.

Somehow, Anko had pestered him into buying her a handful of chocolate frogs and pranks, although he knew it would be a mistake to do so, considering the fact that she'd probably set them off in _his _class.

Snape was reaching the end of his patience when, it seemed, Anko remembered her task. "Oh dang, I forgot!" she cried. "Darnit, Snape, why didn't you remind me?"

Why? Well he didn't want to seem to pushy. Anko was the type to let down her guard at the sight of something fun to do, but she wasn't _that_ stupid. If he 'pushed' too hard, she might end up remembering she had a secret to keep. "...You...seemed to be...enjoying yourself," he said through gritted teeth.

Anko made a funny face, looking at him. She leaned in close, squinting at him with narrow eyes. Snape scowled at her as she got uncomfortably close. All of a sudden, she stuck her tongue out and used her fingers to pull parts of her face in several directions, first pushing her nose up like a pig, and then pulling the bottom of her eyes down and twisting her face around like she was some mentally deficient escapee of a mental institution.

"Assistant Mitarashi, if you are quite done, get out of my face," Snape said as she continued to make strange faces at him.

"Good, I was worried you were a fake or something," Anko said, putting her hand on his forehead. "Any _normal_ person would have laughed."

"..." Snape scowled at her as she frowned and made a thoughtful face.

"At first, I would've said you're delusional with fever, but you're too cold instead. Do you have a cold?"

"I suggest you hurry up," Snape muttered.

"Oh, yeah, whatever," Anko said, remembering the mission once again.

Anko suddenly ran off, sprinting all around the village of Hogsmeade, leaving Snape in the dust. He stared at her as she grew smaller and smaller in the distance and disappeared into the crowd. She... was waaay too fast to be human... Snape growled. This was probably how she got lost in the first place. He tried to follow after the girl, but couldn't find her until fifteen minutes had passed.

There was a loud explosion.

'Hm, that sounds like Anko...' Snape wished that she would, at least, limit the destruction to the school. He headed for the 'scene of the crime' and found Anko fighting with another person. He scowled. Most people were too busy running around screaming to pay attention to the two as they seemed to fight without using wands. There was no magic being used, as the Anko and the stranger fought with surprising agility.

The man was shorter than Anko, but looked a bit younger as well. He wore a strip of black cloth as a belt, like Anko, only it seemed to be a bit tattered, as if something pinned onto it had been torn off. Severus was unsure of who to help. Anko may have been attacked by this boy, but this boy could also be the reason that they were there in the first place. Was he the mission that Anko was supposed to 'take care of'?

A girl with a black cloth and a metal plate with a music note covering her eyes approached, holding a large dog by the fur as she led it around. What was she, blind?

But, more importantly, he knew that mutt... No he didn't. Severus hated dogs and therefore decided to ignore him. But the girl must have been blind, calling out for someone called 'Kuro-kun' and heading straight for the fight.

"Little girl..." he said, pulling on the back of the girl's shirt as she tried to walk straight ahead. "Come here and stay out of the way."

But the moment he grabbed her collar, the girl began screaming, "KURO-KUN, I'M BEING KIDNAPPED! HELPHELPHELPHELP!" The dog whose fur she had just released looked up at Snape's astonished face and bared its teeth, but didn't look at all threatening to the professor. Instead, it began rolling over, as if laughing at him.

This must be why he hated dogs.

But the moment the girl began to scream at the top of her lungs, the one Anko was fighting (whom Severus could only assume was this 'Kuro-kun' that the girl was screaming for) looked in their direction and fixed a cold stare on Severus and then ran away from Anko and straight at him.

"Snuffles, LEAVE!" their current enemy said, coming up towards Severus at an alarming speed. The dog looked at him, looking confused. He gave it a look and the dog ran off.

Surprised, Severus cast a silent Conjunctivitis curse at Kuro-kun's eyes. He let out a cry, covering his eyes and veering off to the side. Rubbing them and giving Severus an enraged glare, the Potions professor was surprised. The Conjunctivitis curse should not only have stung his eyes, but have blinded him temporarily at least.

"Kuro-kun!" The girl pulled several cords out from what seemed to be thin air. A handful of people who were still running around suddenly froze and fell to the ground, unable to move. Anko was one of them. Severus looked at the girl and aimed carefully, not really wanting to hurt a blind girl who just might be innocent.

"_Flagrate_."

"Aah!" The girl yelped and released the threads when they suddenly got warm and caught on fire.

"Madoka!" Kuro-kun looked through his bloodshot eyes and ran straight at Severus again. Anko lept up and jumped onto Kuro-kun's back.

'_Petrificus Totalis_.' Severus wordlessly waved his wand as the girl's body stiffened like a board and fell to the ground.

"Mado—"

"_Soshaku no Daija no Jutsu_!" (2) Anko shouted, still latched onto his back. ((...I'm not sure if it's grammatically correct Japanese...))

What in Merlin's name? Something happened. Snape glanced in the direction of Anko's strange, wandless incantation, and Anko tried to bite Kuro-kun's neck, but he jumped up and took her off balance and she ended up plunging surprisingly sharp teeth into his shoulder.

"Argh!" He shook her off and glared at her.

"Orochimaru..." he said.

"No, I am Mitarashi Anko, and don't you forget it!" Anko replied.

"That was Orochimaru's technique," Kuro-kun said. "His snakebite isn't much compared to mine. _Kyuuketsuki Soshaku no Jutsu_!" (3). As Anko's fangs disappeared, Kuro-kun's grew longer and he lunged at her.

"Yeeh!" Anko yelped and cowered, covering her head when there was a 'puff'. Sev turned around to find that the bound girl was gone...

"Aah!" Severus turned around again, his attention back to Anko and 'Kuro-kun'. The boy had bitten Anko's arm when, all of a sudden, he jumped back, with a strange look on his face.

He made a sign with his hands again, wanting to take one last shot at them before...before what?

"_Onpa_—kuso!" Kuro-kun had a surprised look on his face as he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Oi..." Anko muttered, licking a bloody arm. "Not much of a fight but... I think we should get back to Hogwarts."

* * *

Moody clunked down the hallway during the Great Hall, with a specific destination in mind. There he was, the savior of the world and so-called 'vanquisher' of the Dark Lord, athough Moody knew better than to believe this tale. The Dark Lord was not dead. Not yet. He was somewhere in the world, planning his unexpected return to the wizarding world, to catch everyone offguard and take over. He just have

"Potter," Professor Moody growled. "Dumbledore just remembered to tell me that you know..."

"Know what?"

"Shinobi," Moody muttered.

"Or, er, Dumbledore said not to mention it to anyone."

"To keep it a secret, eh? I'm your teacher, Potter, and I think I need you to tell me what you know and what you don't know. There are a lot of rumors going about. Shinobi from other worlds and things like that. I know you know something about them at least. Dumbledore has you taking lessons, doesn't he?"

"Er, yeah..."

"I'm your teacher. You need to get your facts straightened out. If you've got your information wrong, then it'll just hurt you in the future," Moody said. "Tell me, about the shinobi in this school. Dumbledore thinks it best for me not to know, but I say you've got to keep constant vigilance! I can't be prepared for an attack if I don't know who my enemies might be."

"Enemies?"

"Potter, even you are my enemy. You can't trust anyone, because your foe may be the person whom you'd least expect! Now...who are the shinobi?"

"Er, the teachers, I think. All of the assistants."

"I thought that much, but I was talking about the students."

"How did you know about that?"

"You just told me Potter. You leak information too easily. Learn to fix that."

"Er...okay. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that all of the new Japanese students are shinobi."

"And what makes you think that?" Professor Moody snorted, his face twisted, looking even more demented than usual. Right. All of the newer Japanese students.

There was the stupid Uzumaki blond, the flashy Rock kid who wore green tights under his school robes, the girl who turned red or white and fainted whenever she saw Uzumaki or himself staring at her. Was his face really that scary...? And there was the silly blond girl, the one with pink hair, the kid with the abnormally large 'puppy', the girl with the buns, the fat kid, the lazy kid who slept in each of his classes, the boy with the white eyes, the girl with four ponytails, and the kid who wore make-up like a mask. Moody frowned. There was no way all of these kids were shinobi. Shinobi were supposed to be powerful, dangerous, and, above all, stealthy.

It was impossible. The cousins with the white eyes... had white eyes. Sure, they weren't really blind, but with their eyes the way they were, they definitely attracted a lot of attention. They were probably those muggle contacts that changed eye colors. Ingenious for nonmagic folk, but you had to poke your eyes to get the thin plastic things in, for Merlin's sake! The Kiba boy carried his dog all around school and smelled and, occasionally in the hallways, would even ride his dog! That was _not_ laying low.

Rock Lee...he definitely wasn't a ninja. Ino Yamanaka was a girl, as was the white-eyed Hinata Hyuga, Temari, Sakura, and Tenten. And Sakura definitely stuck out, with her pink hair and all. Sure, she had the spunky look, but she was a girl. Not that powerful looking either. He couldn't imagine the fat kid, Chouji Aki-something, being a ninja. Well, he could imagine him, being a shinobi in a shinobi outfit, but it wasn't a pleasant sight.

"Well, some of them are helping me train with the teachers," Harry said.

"_Really_," Moody said, genuinely interested. Maybe they were shinobi.

"Yeah, the assistants make Sasuke, Neji, and Lee spar with them a lot."

"Spar?"

"Yeah. They're really good at fighting. Hand-to-hand combat. I think it's tai kwon do."

That proved it. They were not shinobi. Maybe they called themselves shinobi, but they weren't really. Shinobi didn't use muggle martial arts. From what he collected, they weren't even from this world! Tai kwon do... what a joke!

"So it was Neji, Lee, and Sasuke, huh?" Moody said.

"Yeah. Neji and Sasuke said I 'didn't suck to bad for a wizard'...but Lee said I was doing okay. Though he beats me the worst," Harry laughed and ruffled his hair. A stupid habit, really. Moody didn't like that about him, as well as many of his other silly habits. "They said I might get to learn how to throw knives in like, a month. They're trying to find out who I can probably beat too. And I know a lot of ways to get out of sticky situations, like getting tied up in ropes." Moody held up his flask in the air and shook it. Almost empty... Stupid thing.

"Hn, sounds like rubbish to me," Moody said, shaking his head as he turned around to leave. "Sorry, Potter, but I guess I can't really help you here. They don't sound like real ninjas."

"But they are," Harry insisted.

"Well, it doesn't matter to me," Moody shrugged as he clunked away from Harry down the hall. "But it sounds like this martial arts stuff is doing you good." That idiot... Moody just wanted to curse that dratted boy, although that would do more harm than good. In fact, it wouldn't do any good at all. "Just remember...CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he added for good measure.

Now that he thought about it... perhaps some of them really _were_ shinobi. Uzumaki had some sort of monster in his head. Maybe all shinobi had that? His master himself knew little about the shinobi, like who they were, what they looked like, what they could do, and what they were. Maybe they were just monsters. Sasuke Uchiha. Definitely the shinobi type, aside from the fact that his mere presence brought an onslaught of girls. He was sure Sasuke was a shinobi. He had heard a few things about the boy. And Neji Hyuuga looked like the shinobi type as well, focused and determined, completely wary of everything. In fact, it often seemed that there was nothing he could hide from the Hyugas, just as no one could hide anything from him. Many times already, he had caught Hyuuga Neji watching him carefully and Hinata watching him the same way a cornered mouse watches a cat. As for "Mr. Sabaku", who preferred going by Kazekage... he had heard from a source that the one called the Kazekage had _died_. Probably a dreamer like the Naruto kid, only less vocal about his goals to become Kazekage. But he was absolutely sure now that Neji, Sasuke, Gaara, Hinata, and Naruto were shinobi. Uzumaki wasn't much of a threat, however, he was sure that there was something more to the boy that met the eye. Hinata wasn't a threat at all. One cold hard stare could scare the girl into unconsciousness. Sasuke was a traitorous shinobi, from what he had heard, but was still desirable... And Hyuuga Neji... the boy could probably not find any proof, no matter how much he suspected his professor, of foul play.

Yes, these boys could be ninjas, and ninjas would get in his way. He just needed them out of his way so he could carry out his orders.

And he knew the perfect way to do it.

* * *

As puzzled as Harry was by Moody's cynical attitude towards the shinobi (he was positive that they were!) , he forced it out of his mind. There were more important things to do. Like thinking up strategies to get out of Snape's detention unscathed. Normally, Harry always got out of detentions just fine, but ever since that assistant arrived...

He dreaded every single detention and class he had with the snarky Potions professor and his crazy, rebellious sidekick girl. Accidents went off everywhere, as if following the source of all the chaos. The only person who seemed immune to the explosive potions was Naruto, and that only because he was so bad, it couldn't possibly get any worse. But it didn't matter, because Naruto was still gone. Harry wondered fleetingly where the "hidden countries", or whatever Dumbledore had called them, were. How well could one hide a whole country, let alone at least two more?

As soon as Moody left, Harry continued forward for his detention, feeling as if there were lead in his feet. He stood outside of the door, already about five minutes late for his class, prepared for death by accident. He pushed open the door and fearfully looked in to find...

A party?

"Hello, Harry," Fred (or George) said. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Er...hi?" Harry replied. "What's going on here?"

"Snape and Mitarashi disappeared somewhere," the other twin said, "so we decided to make do with what we can."

"We really should thank Mitarashi now. Thanks to her, Snape can't ever tell whether the pranks are ours, hers, or Naruto's. And where _is_ Naruto by the way? And his friends? They're gone in the middle of the school year."

"I think they all went back to their home place, wherever that is, to take some sort of test."

One of the twins shrugged. "Pity, isn't is, George? Just made new stuff too."

"New what?" Harry asked.

"Uh...nothing yet," George said, nudging his brother. "The side affects are a bit off. We need Naruto for a few more tests."

"A lot more, actually," Fred said.

Harry grinned. Hermione would surely look down upon this, but not that it mattered. Naruto had the tendency to be able to recover from a number of dangerous things: exploding cauldrons, alarmingly powerful punches from Sakura, the Weasley twins' experimental candy...

"So...what are you doing?"

"Well, other students are just...hanging around. Fred, Lee, and I are looking for a few spare ingredients," George said, sniffing a jar of murky liquid. He made a face and traded it for another. "If you find anything that smells like feet, tell me... Phew, okay, _that's_ fish."

"Er...I'm just gonna go now..."

"See ya, Harry."

"Bye! Urgh, that's feet alright! Lee, George, I got it!"

Harry left the dungeons, feeling rather puzzled. He would never spend more time in detention than he had to. Dinner would be in an hour or two, so the Great Hall should have been empty, but it wasn't silence that Harry had heard when he passed by.

"...and he ended up in the infirmary!" an irritated voice said. Curious, Harry looked inside to see some of the teachers talking amongst each other, seemingly unaware that there was still a student loitering around between meals listening in.

"Well I don't know about you, but I think it's funny," Ibiki sneered.

Everyone stared at him.

"Ibiki..." Iruka said hesitantly, "...you've got an eccentric sense of humor." Harry smirked. That was the nice way of putting it.

"I'm not sure whether to be made at Anko or Asuma! I mean, Asuma shouldn't have looked up her skirt, but she shouldn't have kicked him off the Divination ladder!" Kurenai said, clutching her head in confusion. Kakashi patted her back sympathetically. "And now she ended up going to Hogsmeade with that _wizard_!"

"Be angry about everything," he suggested. "It keeps things a bit simpler for you."

"Hey, you're right," she said, nodding with a smile.

"Anyway, I'm not comfortable with that boy knowing who we are," Shizune said. "It might endanger our mission and then we'd have to abort. I've just sent a letter to Tsunade-sama expressing my concerns, as well as news of the two Sound-nins and Anko and Asuma's mission to attempt to find out what their purpose for being here was. According to Kiba and Shino, the more powerful one got a bird with a message, crumpled it up, and said something about leaving and having a talk later. There's a possibility that they won't even still be in Hogsmeade when Anko and Severus arrive."

"Good," Kurenai said. "I'd hate for her to use a jutsu and let _another_ person know who we are. Apparently, Dumbledore told us that even though the kid found out, no one else in the whole school knows, although I'm pretty sure that Severus is suspicious. That's probably why Asuma told us that Anko told him that he wanted to go with them. In fact, he's been hanging around Anko a lot more lately."

"Well, he might not suspect anything," Kakashi said. "He _could_ just be _madly_ in love with Anko."

They all laughed. Sure, the snarky bastard would fall in love with the most destructive woman born on his earth. Like that would ever happen.

"Speaking of things that would never happen," Kurenai said, "where's thick-brows senior? Did he skip out on this meeting? It's not like Gai to—"

"Shh!" everyone hushed her, in case the crazy man would hear his name and pop up out of nowhere. But it was too late, because that's what Gai did.

"I HEARD MY SWEET, YOUTHFUL NAME!" Gai shouted, hearing his name and popping up out of nowhere. Everyone (including Harry) fell anime-style. "I APOLOGIZE! FOR THE FLAME OF MY YOUTH MUST HAVE FLICKERED, HAVING FORGOTTEN THAT ANY OF YOU GUYS HAD MENTIONED A GROUP MEETING TODAY!"

Harry closed his eyes and choked back laughter. The disappointment that Gai had found them was clearly evident to everyone except for Maito Gai as they slumped over sulkily. Harry left, having heard enough and not feeling like listening to three hours worth of "youth" just for a little bit more information that didn't regard him. Dumbledore didn't want him interfering or getting involved with the shinobi's business, so he wasn't going to. Not for now anyway.

* * *

**Gaara's Office/Home in Sunagakure**: Private Meeting

_Two members of the Sound have been spotted in Hogsmeade. One was described as a young female wearing her hitai-ate band over her eyes with the Otogakure insignia engraved in it. The second was described as a slightly taller male with his face covered. The female had a large dog, similar to Kiba's, that the girl cared for and ordered around. I am wondering if there is a renegade Inuzuka clansman or dogbreeder further along the line. Inuzuka Kiba claims that there is no traitor in his family and that there is no way that Kiba and this girl are related. However, Shino also agrees that they have no blood relationship, claiming, and these are his exact words, "That Inuzuka look 'undomesticated' and rough, while this girl was 'well-kept' and 'well-breed'." Still, perhaps she had Inuzuka blood somewhere along her family tree?  
We are sending Anko and Asuma to Hogsmeade tomorrow (on October 3).  
HP's training is going quite nicely. Of course, Neji and Sasuke are as merciless in practice sparring as they are on missions, and Lee rarely holds back. I am currently looking through the books of Madam Pomfrey, Hogwarts medi-wizard, to search for anything that may increase his growth and potential. Anko describes him as "scrawny and kinda a dork". Sadly, we all agree. This boy is exceptional in many of his classes, but it nothing to spectacular. We hear about his excellent 'quidditch' skills (quidditch is a game played on... brooms), but have yet to witness it, as the quidditch games have been canceled this year for an upcoming tournament. In any case, quidditch abilities have nothing to do with battle.  
The problem with wizards, as according to Neji, is that all chakra openings are 'clogged', with the exception of their wand arm, a few points on their other arm, and (in Dumbledore's and the more powerful wizards' case) their face. Whether this handicap is unchangeable or something that we can get rid of, we are trying to find out. If we manage to 'unclog' his chakra openings, he may progress much quicker than he is already. A real shinobi would be able to have mastered shuriken throwing already, by HP is rather adequate. For a wizard.  
Sasuke and Ino have been disappearing during their free time recently. Often, when they leave, Hogwarts' "Golden Trio" (aka: HP and his two friends Granger and Weasley) do as well. And when they reappear from wherever they left to, their clothes are often dusty with a few signs of muck at the bottom. I am sure that they are not doing anything that Jiraiya would approve of. Sasuke is too dignified for premarital intercourse and Hermione Granger is too... I have no words to describe her. Aside from that she is very conservative.  
In any case, I'm afraid that the appearance of the Sound is very suspicious, that they should appear at the same time our own shinobi have appeared. Anko and Asuma are very powerful shinobi, but here at Hogwarts, we are kept busier than we had originally planned. In the infirmary, I am constantly using my chakra to heal victims of a 'Scoot', although I'm not sure what it is exactly, rumor among students has it that the teacher of Care for Magical Creatures is always bringing in wild, dangerous creatures. I do believe they are right, from what Kakashi tells me. Iruka is helping students go over years worth of information that they had not recieved during the schoolyear and is swamped with schoolwork. The only one who is not busy is Maito Gai, because the professor prefers to keep him out of the way, as he is constantly disturbing the students.  
-Shizune_

"...And that's what the letter says," Tsunade said, folding it up.

"This is an interesting turn of events."

"There are Sound shinobi at Hogsmeade?" Sakura asked.

"You shouldn't worry," Gaara said. "There are two shinobi, from the sounds of it, and there's a large number of our own skilled shinobi there. Seventeen shinobi, all ranging from chuunin to jounin, and a medic-nin, not to mention a school full of kids with the most interesting hexes I've seen."

"Wow, Gaara's interested," Temari joked.

"He's right," Shikamaru said. "If there was a battle, it almost be unfair to the enemy, if they were enemies."

"What makes you think they aren't?" Temari asked him.

"We have no idea how long these people have been here, and from the sounds of it, neither Kiba nor Shino got away with this harmed. If they left peacefully, then we may assume that they are not an enemy that requires our immediate attention."

"Well excuse me," Jiraiya said, "but I think we'd prefer it if we got to the _enemy_ before the shit hits the fan."

"If they haven't attacked, then they might not be enemies at all," the genius replied. He looked around. Temari knew this look. Shikamaru was a lazy guy but...he hated being wrong. A slight change from the chuunin three years ago, since then, he wouldn't give the slightest thought to someone who argued with his opinion. Now, after exposure to the Sand kunoichi, he was finally starting to develop a backbone! Or perhaps the change began after the failed mission to retrieve Sasuke. Either way, Shikamaru was (almost) a new shinobi.

"Paper..." he said.

Temari grabbed a few multi-colored pens and several sheets of paper with a grin. These people had no idea what was coming to them.

"Ordinarily, the Sound are only sneaky to an extent. There are two general reactions to an enemy, as I have learned through observation: flight or fight. This, of course, never applies to the Sound. If they wish to make an appearance, then they will. And they will never appear in a fight if the odds are so drastically stacked against them unless they have a special ability that would make up for their disadvantage. If they are arriving here knowing that they somehow have an advantage against eighteen experienced shinobi, then I would expect them to have powers exceeding the Akatsuki which is unlikely, since Orochimaru is Otokage, the strongest, yet fears Itachi, who may not be the most powerful of the Akatsuki..." And with that, Shikamaru began drawing charts and graphs, while making calculations of the probability that they would actually attack. Gaara sighed and pulled Baki aside.

"Coffee please. Black. No decaf. Bring one for...bring some for others as well."

Thirty minutes later, Baki had returned and Shikamaru was finally beginning to get to the end results, while everyone else was starting to fall asleep on their feet, with the exception of Gaara. "...So, I suppose that if Anko is as reckless as she always is, she'll probably attack the shinobi, thus increasing the probability of an attack from 24.53 percent to 42.82 percent, and—"

"Shika-kun, please just tell us the final calculation please!" Temari begged. Shikamaru shrugged. Gaara drank his coffee and handed a mug to Sakura, who added cream and sugar from the table.

"I'd say that, overall, there's 35 percent chance of them getting payback, but that's only if Anko actually attacked them, which she probably did. All of that is only from what I know from our own information. I don't have their character psychoanalysis and—"

"That's good enough, Shikamaru," Tsunade sighed, rubbing her head. These numbers where giving her a headache. Perhaps giving him psychoanalysis with Ibiki was a mistake... Sure, he was a smart guy. He only made an effort when it mattered. At times like this, he _was_ making an effort, but not much of one. Apparently, talking in a non-monotonous voice was probably too troublesome. The lack of tone was helping them all fall asleep.

"I am tired," Tsunade said. "What do you all suppose we do about this?"

"There's not much to do," Jiraiya said. "I guess Shikamaru is right. The two of the Sound are not much of a threat for now."

"Maybe we should just send one more shinobi back? Or two?" Sakura suggested. "It's not comfortable, thinking about the fact that Hogwarts might just get attacked by the Sound. That means information might have leaked out. The Sound might even go as far as to bringing several teams to Hogwarts while we're stuck here."

"Well, we do have several off duty shinobi," Tsunade said. "How about... Sai and Yamato? Yamato's been pretty bored lately. And Sai's Sai."

Sakura laughed, although Gaara and Temari, the only ones who never met him, were just a bit confused.

"Alright," Shikamaru said, nodding in approval. "Bring Yamato and Sai, but not as teachers or students. Perhaps actually guards? Bring them to Dumbledore. He's bringing in 'Aurors', which are like muggle police or our ANBU, for security reasons at Hogwarts during the Triwizard Tournament. We'll just send them to Dumbledore and have him say that they're some sort of special division of Aurors, brought to keep spectators of the future Triwizard Tournament from causing trouble."

"A Triwizard Tournament?" Jiraiya repeated.

"It's a tournament with three schools, each with a 'champion'. They go through tasks, jump through hoops, and amuse the crowds," Shikamaru said, yawning lazily. "Like chuunin exams. Have them all go through the most dangerous things we can think of and entertain rich customers. In fact, this chuunin exam was made to lower the mortality rates, as is this years Twiwizard Tournament."

"Alright, alright, alright," Tsunade said, holding up her hands. "Then, we will send Yamato and Sai. Period. Now is there any more business left or can I go to sleep?"

No one said anything for a minute, so Sakura spoke up. "Um, about our current residence at Hogwarts..."

"What about it?" Tsunade cried in desperation. All she wanted was some SLEEP!

"This is a covert mission in which we must protect the subject and where anyone can be an enemy. Yet, at this school of ours, we aren't fitting in very well."

"What do you mean?" Tsunade asked her. "You may not be the most popular person in the school, but I'm sure you aren't outcasts, are you?"

"We aren't," Sakura said, "but the only ones who can actually 'fit in' are Shikamaru, Chouji, Ino, Sasuke, Tenten, and _kinda_ Kiba, although Akamaru brings a lot of attention as well. My hair color makes me stick out. Naruto is actually normal, fitting in with a handful of pranksters, but he heals so much quicker than the rest of us without magic! He got burnt by a skrewt on one of the first days of school and healed in less than a minute. No one says anything, but now they're interested in him more than they should be. Gaara and Kankurou are bullies of the school. Gaara carries a giant gourd and scares everyone even more than Kankurou, and Kankurou is always beating up people and wearing gaudy makeup. And Temari... well, she just attracts a lot of attention with...the way she is. And she's really loud."

"Gee, thanks," Temari joked.

"Lee is constantly posing and flashing everyone—"

"WHAT?"

"—with his teeth."

"Oh." Tsunade wiped the sweat off her forehead in relief.

"Teachers suspect Shino of selling drugs."

"I can understand why..."

"Yeah," Sakura said. "And then...there's Hinata and Neji."

"What about them?"

"They're eyes," Sakura said. "Two Hyugas do not fit in, whether they are in the magic world or the muggle world."

"Oh...yeah..." Tsunade muttered, shaking her head. "Shit. Oh, and Gaara, lose the gourd. That's bringing a lot of attention, isn't it?"

"...No."

"Come on, no one's going to attack you at Hogwarts."

"They won't give me respect either. They don't know about my sand, but at least they're as scared as hell that I'll drop it on them agai—that I'll just drop it on them."

"Then make is smaller."

"Then I can't hit peop—No."

"Then make a bag out of it instead of a gourd."

"A _man purse_," Jiraiya whispered loudly. Everyone laughed.

"Right..." Sakura said, "Er, not only that, but two fanclubs have already formed, and there are several others in the making."

"And who are these people worshipping now?"

"The two largest factions of our own people revere Sasuke and Neji. There are three others: Harry, some guy named Cedric, and a Malfoy, but that's not important. There is also one forming for Tenten, Ino, Hinata, and Gaara—"

"GAARA?" everyone shouted. Gaara choked on his coffee, nearly scalding his lungs.

"I didn't hear about this..." he said darkly. He turned to Baki, who was busy in the corner, trying to hide his laughter. "More coffee." He looked down at his now empty mug, which he had inhaled in three seconds. Hm, maybe he should try something new. "And sugar and cream. Decaf, and I'll kill you," he thoughtfully. "Please," he added for good measure. Well... Temari's lesson of polite manners and etiquette weren't _completely_ wasted on Gaara. The other brother still farted at the dinner table.

"Actually..." Temari said hesitantly, "I did. I thought it was some sick joke though..."

Gaara shuddered at this, already having his own fanclub at Sunagakure. Good kages of the Sand! If Mikoto found out about this, she'd probably hitch a ride back to Hogwarts, organize the club, and take over it... Why him...?-! Sakura pat Gaara's back sympathetically.

"Don't worry," she said, "fanclubs usually go after single guys. Wait...you should worry... Or get a girlfriend."

"Like Mikoto! Or even better, Sakura!" Jiraiya said cheerfully, winking at Gaara.

The window was forced open as a torrent of sand from outside hit Jiraiya square in the face as Sakura looked away, either embarrassed or not wanting to witness all the violence.

"Urm...anyway," Sakura said, "I think Ino's fixing the Lee problem—"

"How?" Tsunade asked.

"Er...she's going to give him a makeover. Whether he likes it or not." People laughed.

"Fine," Tsunade said. "I know what to do. Alright, Sakura, eventually, slowly 'grow out your hair' and make it something normal or something. Like a light brown or something. Say you just dyed your hair. You don't have to really make it brown or longer. Just use a henge. Not too much of a difference. Don't waste too much chakra. And let people know that Naruto had often gotten into fights and is dead clumsy, so we cast some sort of quick healing charm on him that's renewed every week or so. Gaara, stop killing people—"

"I didn't kill anyone yet!" Gaara said indignantly. "All I do is threaten people. Kankurou's the only one who actually beats anyone up." He let out a small sigh of relief and had a funny smile on his face when he got his coffee again. He tasted the cream and sugar in the coffee. It was okay.

"Right, well you still have your little influence over Kankurou. Encourage nonviolence and go 'I find anyone beating up anyone and you die!' You'll still be scary, just like you like it, and you won't have to put up with fights," Tsunade said, mimicking Gaara's normally irritated face. "Try to get Shino to be less... Aburame-like. Be open and try to get him to say a sentence or two at least. Sasuke, Neji, Tenten, Ino, Hinata, and Gaara: get a girlfriend. Wait... aren't Neji and Tenten going out?"

"Yes, but Neji's not very open about it. Someone asked about Tenten to see if she was single and found himself nearly tossed out of the Divination tower. Neji doesn't like it when people hit on her, but he refuses to let Tenten even hold his hand in public."

"Hm... That will have to be fixed..." Tsunade murmured.

"And, as for the Hyugas, do you think you could say they're contacts?"

"I don't know," Sakura said, "I think it's too late for that."

"Fine, we'll just say they're blind."

"It's too late for that too."

Tsunade let out an angry cry of frustration.

"I have come to the conclusion," Gaara said quickly, "that there is no solution. Dismissed."

"Thank goodness," Tsunade said, leaving immediately with Jiraiya following after her. Temari and Shikamaru left the conference room as well. Gaara glared at Shikamaru's retreating back. Miscreant.

"Eh, I'm tired," Sakura moaned.

"You'll sleep in my room tonight I guess," Gaara said.

"Are you sure?" she asked him.

"I don't use my bed," he replied. "Unless you want to sleep in Kankurou's room, where puppets stare at you and it smells like cabbage and face paint, or you could try to get a room at a nearby inn and not find an empty room because it's filled with foreign genins taking the exam, their teachers, and those who have arrived to watch the fights tomorrow evening. It would be easier to stay in Kankurou's room, but much less pleasant."

"I think...I'll stay in your room."

"Too late, the offers gone," Gaara said.

"WHAT?"

"Uh...just kidding?"

At the sound of this, Temari burst into the room again. "_WHAT_?" she said, even louder than Sakura. "Did you just 'kid'?-! Oh my god, that's Gaara's first joke! Hold on, I've got beer!"

Tsunade returned. "Did I hear something about an alcoholic beverage?"

"Did I hear not one, but _two_ women say something about alcohol, getting drunk, and dancing?" (Jiraiya)

"I don't think beer past midnight is a good idea." (Baki, remembering having to drag Tsunade out of the building)

"How troublesome..." (you should know who that was...)

"Actually, that wasn't his first..." Sakura said tiredly.

"You've GOT to be kidding me!" Temari wailed. "I missed his first joke?"

"This means more drinks," Tsunade said enthusiastically. "Gaara has made more than one joke."

"That's enough! Get OUT!" Gaara said, shoving everyone out of the room. Hm, maybe he should have gone with decaf...?

He sighed once everyone was gone. "That is why Naruto describes me as insane. The moment I _don't _act insane, people start to think I'm sick or something."

"Another joke," Sakura said meekly. "You really have changed."

'That wasn't really a joke...' Gaara thought, although he made it a point not to tell her that, as she seemed rather impressed with his change. "I'll find you and Naruto some clothes—"

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" Sakura asked him.

"It's Mikoto's. She's smaller than you so the clothes are a bit tight..." Gaara said at point-blank. (STAB!) "...And those clothes don't fit you well. Not for the desert..." (STAB STAB!) "And since Mikoto doesn't have any cleavage, it's too tight on top. There were three jounins and a chuunin staring and you didn't even notice..." (STAB STAB STAB STAB!) Now Sakura understood why he was Gaara the heartless guy who all the girls in the Sand admired. Well, why he was 'Gaara the heartless guy' anyway. "...Because of you, three jounins and a chuunin are currently attending the Sunagakure hospital..." (STAB STA—what?) Sakura shook the imaginary knives away in the confusion.

"Just go ahead and sleep," Gaara finished.

Sakura sighed, a bit disheartened, but surprised that Gaara might have put four shinobi in the hospital for such a little thing. Well, not a little, but not that big. "I'll pay you back," Sakura said.

"No need," Gaara said. He paused to think of an excuse. "I also need to get Naruto something as well before he decides to reuse his other clothes, including his underwear, or else he'll get some sort of nasty infection. So if you pay me back, then so will he, and I doubt he'll be too happy about that."

Sakura smiled and even dared to hug him. "Thanks," she said with a grin.

Gaara didn't say anything in returned, so she went ahead and ran upstairs. Sleep! Precious, precious sleep! Once she left, Gaara immediately slumped over. He had been holding back several...not blushes. The Kazekage does not blush. He just...turns a bit red. Like his hair. He turned around, ready to go outside, when someone screamed.

* * *

Upstairs, Sakura jumped onto the bed with a sigh of relief. It was so late, and she'd probably be getting up early in the morning too! She relaxed in Gaara's bed. Soooo soft! Gaara was probably lurking somewhere downstairs. She rolled over in bed and stared.

"..." What. The. Hell. She continued to stare in silence, unsure of what to do. Because laying next to her in Gaara's bed was another person. A strange guy...

"Well '...' to you too, my pretty pink-haired girl."

"...EEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAK!" she screamed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—urk!" The person screaming in response to Sakura's screaming was cut off by a fist in his face.

"Jiraiya, you perverted bastard!" Sakura shouted as the figure hit the wall with a crack.

"They call..." the person said slowly in pain, peeling himself off the wall, "...me a perverted bastard...but not Jiraiya..."

The older shinobi winced and rubbed his face. "This is going to bruise my pretty face..." he muttered. He had three scratches running across his face. "Who are you?" he asked Sakura. "Hey...you're in the _Kazekage's_ bed. Are you his girlfri—?" But his words were cut short by a torrent of sand.

"Finish that sentence and die a painful death," Gaara said, turning on the lights to reveal a dark skinned and dark haired man. "You both scream like women."

"I _am_ a woman," Sakura said.

Gaara looked up at her and immediately looked away, looking a bit awkward. "...I can see that."

"Hn?" Sakura looked down and turned red. She wasn't naked really... just wearing a T-shirt she had found in Gaara's dresser. Unlike most of the clothes in these drawers, these appeared to be Gaara's. His shirt was just a bit loose on her. _Really_ loose. Sakura pulled up the front of her shirt as the ninja caught in Gaara's sand whistled, only to have his face (along with the rest of his head) covered in sand. Not that it really mattered. Because Inner Sakura emerged for a brief moment (or just Sakura in 'freak-out-there's-a-pervert!' mode) and punched this stranger again, knocking him out of the sand and into the hallway. Gaara followed the stranger out as he rubbed his head, recovering from the constant abuse. First a scratch across his face, then a smack on the head with a stone stick, then getting slapped by a girl into the wall, then breathing in sand, and then getting hit again and knocked into the hallways. Any more of this and he'd quit oggling at kunoichi and start going for normal girls. Kunoichi's were nice and fit, but they were _violent_.

"Where are the others?" Gaara asked the shinobi pervert. Sakura watched them, hiding herself behind the door.

"Er...what others?"

"Don't act like an idiot."

"But I _am_ an idiot," he said.

"Well stop being an idiot for five minutes and tell me where everyone else is," Gaara said.

"Hey! You can't tell me what to do and who to be! I can be whomever I want whether I like it or not! If I want to be an idiot, I'll BE an idiot!"

"...God you're stupid..." Gaara muttered, rubbing his temple. That didn't even make sense...

"Heeey, don't called me stupid!" he said.

"You just said you wanted to be an idiot. I think that basically means you are stupid."

"Did I hit him that hard?" Sakura asked.

"No..." Gaara sighed. "Gahiji's always been like this. Gahiji, you have ten seconds to live if you don't tell me where everyone is."

"Your room," Gahiji said quickly.

"I thought so."

"Then why'd you ask?"

Gaara ignored him. "Come out, _now_," he said. Sakura heard a 'poof'ing sound and turned around to find Naruto, Mikoto, and another girl inside. At the same time, Temari and Shikamaru were leaving Temari's bedroom to see what was going on so loudly in the hallway.

"Naruto, what are you doing in here, you god damn pervert?-!" Sakura shouted, slapping him across the room.

'Sh-she's _strong_...!' Mikoto thought nervously. I can understand Gahiji getting the crap beat out of him, but just how many times can Sakura KO a shinobi with that kind of control?

Gaara looked around. "Where's Furoshiki?"

"Uh...I think Houtai's in the kitchen looking for something to eat. We haven't had a bite all day," the other girl said.

"Okay. Then I will give you five more seconds."

"...? To do what?"

"Well, in all, you have ten seconds to grab him and get out."

"Noooo, pleeeeaaase, Gaarakichi, don't make us leeeeaaave," Mikoto said, grabbing on to his legs.

"Let. Go. And _stop_ calling me that."

"I'll let go if you want to stay."

"You want to die?"

"Uh..." Mikoto released his legs and backed away.

Sakura laughed. "For some reason, it's hard to believe that you guys aren't related. Come on, what's the harm in letting them stay?"

"Well, it's probably violating the rules that says 'no outside help' when they signed the Chuunin Exam contract on the appication," Gaara said. He took a deep breath. "Aizesu, Mikoto, Okay...now what...are you doing here?"

An opening! "Wellyouseeitslateandallgeninsarestayingatinnsandotherplacestorestinsteadofcampingoutlikeyouprobablywantedustosowedecidedtocrashatyourplaceinsteadofours."

"...What?" Gaara looked at Aizesu, who shrugged.

"I didn't catch that either," she said.

"Mikoto said, 'Well, you see, it's late and all genins are staying at inns and other places for rest instead of camping out like you probably wanted us to so we decided to crash at your place instead of ours," Gahiji said.

For a minute, nobody said anything. "So...you can't remember where you live," Gaara said, "But you can remember all of that gibberish, translate it to normal Japanese, and have it properly punctuated."

"...I can?"

"Never mind," Gaara said. "And no, you cannot stay."

"Aaaaw, why not?" Mikoto whined.

"Last time you had a slumber party at my office without my permission, almost all of you got drunk and nearly destroyed my office."

"Are you still complaining about that?"

"Yes. I am."

"Oh."

"Well I don't see any harm in letting them stay," Sakura said.

Gaara gave them a look. "Fine," he said stubbornly, "but if I find out that any of you are taking the items that have already been submitted—"

"'Our blood will strengthen your sand'," Gahiji, Aizesu, and Mikoto chanted along in unison. This was Gaara's favorite threat.

"I know, I know," Mikoto said with a grin. "We get it."

"You can all sleep in Temari and Kankurou's rooms," Gaara continued, annoyed that these stupid genins knew him so well. "But my office is off-limits."

"What?" Naruto said. "But Sakura was going to sleep in it!"

"I can trust Sakura to _not_ destroy everything in my office."

"You know," Temari said, sleepily rubbing her eyes, "it's nice to know that Shikamaru and I get the same privacy as out guest." This was, of course, sarcasm.

Gaara gave them a look, making it clear that Temari and Shikamaru's every move would be watched if they were ever alone together.

Shikamaru sighed. "As troublesome as it is, I think I'll sleep in your brother's room tonight," he said.

"What?" Temari said. "Why? I like sleeping with y—" GAARA'S SUPER DEATHGLARE 10X. "...At least leave the door open before you go inside. You might want to air out the 'essence of Kankurou'. It stinks in there. Even Baki won't clean it."

"Mendokusei..." Shikamaru muttered.

"Good," the Kazekage said, smirking inwardly to himself. "Girls in Temari's room, guys in Kankurou's room. There's enough space to fit you all."

"Slumber party!" Mikoto said, jumping up and down excitedly. Even Temari had to smile. Well, it wouldn't be completely horrible.

"Just wondering," Naruto said, "Can I se the items people turned in?"

"Why?" Gaara asked suspiciously.

"I have no idea what our last items look like," Naruto said logically. Logic? Naruto? Oh my!

"Do what you want," the Kazekage said. "I have an errand to run and the list of the people and the items here, so don't think you can go around and take and item, because I'll know its you."

"Alright, alright," Naruto said. "And I won't need to take anything anyway." He grinned, although no one really understood why but Naruto.

Gaara began to leave when he started walking backwards after realizing that Sakura's too-large shirt was not Temari's.

He looked back in the room. "Sakura... you're wearing my shirt."

"Oh, hehe...yeah," Sakura said, laughing nervously. "I saw some of the stuff Temari wore at night... Frankly, I'm not that bold."

"...It's going to smell like you."

"...Sorry?"

Gaara shook his head and left. He'd have to remember which shirt she was wearing. And hope she didn't keep it.

* * *

The Kazekage headed out of his office. There was a small sandstorm, but nothing he couldn't handle. He walked through it easily, without being pelted by the tiny grains of sand, which moved around him instead of hitting him. He might be the Kazekage of the Sand with a talent for moving Sand around, but he wasn't so different from normal people who don't like getting sand blown down his short.

Naruto was right, surprisingly. Many of the shinobi in the chuunin exams were just returning the buildings they stayed at the night they arrived. This was not testing their survival skills enough. He had foreseen this problem, but it was either keep it easy and stay in the village in an attempt to lower the usual genin mortality rate (4) or kill them all off by tossing them out into the middle of the desert and telling them to find Sunagakure. As amusing as Gaara found the second choice, Sunagakure council (Temari and Kankurou included) all supported the Treasure Hunt, even if it did nothing to test their navigational skills. Even though navigational skills weren't all that necessary for shinobi, as they weren't sailors or anything. Gaara had been slightly disappointed at the time. Maybe all of them would have died, but it would have been interesting.

Gaara knocked on a door.

"Yoshiko-san," he said. "I—"

"Oh, Gaara-chan, it's nice to see you," she said, wrapping Gaara up in a hug.

"...It's late," he said awkwardly.

She smiled at him. "It's alright. I was working on a new outfit. Warm, yet light jackets for the Snow village. Mariku-chan stopped by and helped out. She's very helpful, but she's getting bored. No one to play with, she says. Her brother is finishing some puppets for your brother, but he's not to be bothered. You don't suppose that you have anything for her to do, do you?"

Gaara shook his head. "Many missions are cancelled during exams, and there aren't many missions either. The biggest one is the one at Hogwarts, where our customer, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, pays us 4950 Galleons (5) for each shinobi that we send there as long as we keep all of the students safe while undercover as students, all expenses are taken care of, including school uniform, school supplies, and food."

"My, that sounds nice," Yoshiko said. "Would you like some tea? Nice and warm."

"It makes me tired."

"Oh yes, I forgot... So what's Hogwarts like?"

"It's...interesting. We're learning magic. Not only that, but I do think that we are at an advantage over more experienced wizards. I think that, because we have a better grasp on chakra control, we are learning magic much faster than most other wizards and witches. And everyone is enjoying themselves there."

"Are you having a nice time as well?"

"It isn't horrible. I don't hate it."

"That's nice to know. That there's a place you love, I mean. Is there any girl you like?"

Gaara coughed, even though it was Yoshiko who was drinking the tea. "I... can hardly see how that is relevant."

"Oh, so there _is_ a girl!" Yoshiko said happily, clapping her hands together. "Who is she, Sakura?"

It seemed that, today, Gaara had a tendency to choke. This time, it seemed he was choking on air.

"Oh, it _is_ Sakura! How sweet!"

He...he liked Sakura? But Sakura liked Sasuke, Naruto liked Sakura, and Hinata liked Naruto. The love circle was crowded enough, without him in it. And if he was in it, it wouldn't fit right unless he liked Hinata or Sasuke liked him. The second thought alone was enough to put Gaara ill at ease.

"I'm not in love with Sakura," Gaara said plainly. "I just don't dislike her."

"So...that means you like her!"

"Let me correct my earlier statement: I don't hate her."

"Gaara, a small group of people, myself included, are making a small pamphlet just for you. A pocket dictionary. And we are calling it 'The Encyclopedia of Gaara'. And, if memory serves me right—"

"Which it rarely does," Gaara retorted bitterly to the old woman.

"—then you have just confessed your love to Sakura."

"How did you kn—I mean, what makes you think that I like Sakura in the first place?"

"I can count the number of women that you know and talk to one one hand and have plenty of fingers left. Temari not included. So far, there is Sakura, Mikoto and Mariku."

"They aren't the only girls..."

"Oh? And who else?"

"...There's Hyuuga Hinata..." Gaara made a face. Wait, no she was scared shitless of him. "That Tenten girl..." Nope, she was busy with Neji. And also scared shitless of him. "Fine, Yamanaka Ino..." Uh, no. She was currently chasing after Sasuke. And also scared shitless of him. Isn't there any girl who isn't scared shitless of him?-! Gaara was a bit disappointed. Only one other girl? "There are Hogwarts girls... Hermione Granger." Hah. Yoshiko lost a finger on him! She wasn't scared... just wary.

"List one more girl," Yoshiko said.

"I don't need to. Technically you have four fingers on a hand, plus a thumb. Unless you're abnormal, a person ordinarily has four fingers to a hand."

"Well speaking among normal people, we consider the thumb as a finger," Yoshiko said firmly. "Name one more girl."

"Er...Holly...Sun," he said, making up a person at Hogwarts. She'll never know anyway, right?"

"Congratulations," Yoshiko said. "You now have five girls who are not scared of you! That's quite an improvement, Gaara-chan..."

Gaara had the sinking feeling in his stomach that she was being sarcastic... But Yoshiko was right. Sakura was the only not-ugly girl that wasn't scared of him or obsessed with him that he lik—didn't dislike. Urgh...he needed a life.

"I am wasting enough time here," Gaara said.

"Translation: 'I am embarrassed and wish to leave immediately before anyone sees me blush or do something irreparable to my badass reputation as the mean not-so-old Kazekage-sama'. Mariku added that one to the list," Yoshiko said. "Am I right?"

"..." Gaara glared at her. "Remind my to kill that Makoto later."

"Oh, I _am_ right. Oh, and to tell you how I knew you liked her? I saw you beating those poor men half to death when they were giving Sakura-chan some sneaky looks."

Gaara sighed. Stupid nosy old woman. "So where are the Kadaj headed?"

"Hn, they're selling their goods to the Emperor of the Fire Country," Yoshiko said. "I believe they plan on sending the dress to his youngest daughter."

Gaara visibly winced. Good Lord of the Wind, if he didn't get that dress soon before the Emperor's daughter, she was going to stretch it!

"Can you make another one like it?"

"I'm afraid not, Gaara-chan. I made that dress a long time ago when I was much younger than this. Thirty-five years ago, I think. I don't have the eyes or the talent to recreate the same dress two times. Especially not at this age, where my hands are shaky and my eyes weak."

"Well pardon me, but I do think you weren't too tired when you were making fun of—"

"Of the love life you are currently lacking? Yes, talking gives me energy. Thank you for letting me tease you."

"Right...anyway, you still have Sakura's measurements from yesterday, right? I need clothes for her and the blond guy who was with us. Naruto."

"Yes, yes, I actually have some clothes that will fit her quite nicely. They were my old clothes. Still in style as well," she said with a smile. Everything in the Sand was 'in style'. That was because the Sand had no particular style at all. Which made it easier for oddballs and quirks to fit in there. Like Gaara, for example!

Yoshiko had left the room for a brief moment and returned with two heavy bags of clothes, which Gaara quickly relieved her of.

"Thank you, Gaara-chan."

"These are enough to last them the week, right?"

"Yes."

"..." He made a face. "Good."

"You're welcome," Yoshiko said with a smile.

* * *

(1) Sound Wave Technique: Loud, and a bit explosive at close quarters. Leaves user with sore throat and people within earshot with ringing in their ears.

(2) Bite of the Big/Snake Serpent Technique. Grow fangs and bite people. That's what this jutsu does. I'm not sure if it's grammatically correct, though, so... yeah. Anyways, after the effects fall in, it causes a brief moment of paralysis, but just enough to slow a person down.

(3) Vampire Bite Technique: Grows fangs and bite people. Absorbs a lot of chakra for a brief moment.

(4) This exam is an 'experimental' Chuunin Exam. This is the first time in many years it has been held in the Wind Country/Sand Village. In an attempt to lower the amount of deaths that often occur during the Chuunin Exams (don't you remember the Forest of Death...?), the Exam Proctors are keeping it as simple as possible by starting it with a Treasure Hunt.

(5) 4950 Galleons is equal to $23,866.50, or about 2,386,650 yen, which is A LOT! Yeah.

* * *

**My Thinking Corner**

Wow, this is the longest chapter yet, I think. This Chuunin exam part is taking so long to type up as well. I also plan on making Sasuke and Draco more friendly towards one another, if, by friendly, you all think of 'verbally aggressive'. So...by Sasuke's terms, they might be friends. Heheheheheh... Anyway, I'm going as fast as I can to get through this so please put up with me!

Also, when I was just sitting in bed at night thinking (good gods, I am obsessed, aren't I...?), I realized I had made a mistake. Does Gaara still have Shukaku?-! Oi...I screwed up... Um...I'll come up with a reasonable excuse by the next chapter... T-T

Oh, and you know... I actually wanted this to be Anko X Ibiki. Not that they look all pretty or cute together (NO!), but just that it's so fun. And, for some reason, they're just...I don't know. I can't explain. They get along okay in that 'I hate you but I'll put up with you' manner. But then I thought... ANKO X SNAPE! Ahahahahahah! omg. yeah. So I'm like, heeey, that's even MORE opposite! cool!

If you hadn't noticed, I like the 'opposites-attract' type of thing. Like Naruto (brave, loud, stupid) and Hinata (shy, quite, stutters a lot and isn't stupid) Tenten is bland and not really a main character in Naruto anime or manga, so I made her the type of girl who isn't afraid to show that she likes a guy and likes being close to people, opposite to Neji who is like 'You're my girlfriend, but I'm not publicizing that...' and hates being all hugs-and-kisses. There's going to be Kankurou and... eh! Not telling! Well, it'll be a surprise. Sarea isn't really a main character who shows up too much, so... yeah. Um... Temari and Shikamaru. Temari: slavedriver. Shikamaru: lazy slave. ((By the way, for those who are against ShikaTema, I really do think that they'd have a better chance of becoming a couple than any other couples! Even though Shikamaru finds women annoying, bossy, and troublesome, he DOES have a mature interest in marriage and raising a family. And guys in his family have a long history of marrying scary and bossy—ahem, _dominant_ women.))

Oh, I also meant to get Kurogane's scroll/arrival in this chapter, but it was getting too long.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Blind Disasters  
(Screw Potter. The Dark Lord has a new worst enemy...)  
-No offense, Harry Potter fans. We all love him very much.

Naruto woke up much to early in the morning, hearing something urgently tapping the window. Pulling his face out of the pillow, he looked up to find a little brown bat flapping at it wildly, carrying a scrolls that was a bit wider than usual.

Muttering something about being woken up too early in the morning, he pulled open the window and ended up having several pounds of sand blown into his face as the tiny bat flew in and landed on his arm. He forced the window shut when Gahiji suddenly sat up.

"Uh..." Naruto wasn't sure what to say.

"Did you eat the gizzard?" he asked sleepily.

"...No." Eeew, gizzard?

"Oh...okay." Gahiji fell back and went back to sleep.

Naruto made a face and looked at the scroll. On the outside, it read 'OPEN IN PRIVATE' in bold strokes. He went to the bathroom and set it next to the sink, unrolling it to find, in horror, a particularly complex summoning scroll.

...Shit. Naruto backed away. Normally, the more complex the scroll, the larger the sent object was.

In this case, it was Kurogane. The taller shinobi found himself sitting on the counter with his fiit in the sink.

"You know, Naruto," he said, looking around, "when I said private, I meant a place dark and alone, not somebody's house. Where am I?"

"I crashed out at Gaara's place," Naruto said. "This is his bathroom."

"Gaara? As in the demon host of Shukaku?"

"No. I'm not letting you corrupt Gaara too. He doesn't even have a demon anymore!"

"You said he doesn't sleep. It must be because he still has Shukaku inside of him," Kurogane said as if it were obvious. Actually, Naruto had already realized that Gaara still probably had the demon Shukaku inside of him, but he was never sure. The demon was probably a sensitive subject, so he never really asked Gaara.

"But it's still just...he shouldn't still have it," Naruto said.

"Just because he shouldn't doesn't mean he doesn't," he replied. "My theory is that the demon is attracted to its original host. When the demon was removed, Gaara did, technically die. But when Chiyo-san brought him back to life, the demon returned as well. For instance, I believe that if Haruka, the former host of Nekomata, was brought back to life, then the demon Nekomata would return to her."

"Speaking of which, I guess Haruka and the other guy weren't ever found?"

"Not their bodies, but I'm pretty sure they're dead," Kurogane said. "Permanently."

"Well Gaara was dead," Naruto said. "Why can't they be brought back to life?"

"Whatever jutsu Chiyo-san used, it could only be used on a body in relatively perfect condition. Gaara was only suffering nonlethal wounds. His body was, in short, reusable. If his head was taken off in death, however, then he's just gone for good, unless a very well-trained medic-nin healed his dead body, and _then_ brought him back to life."

"So why can't we just find their bodies, heal them, and bring them back to life?" Naruto asked.

"First of all, only a precious few of the Red Sand can resurrect the dead. Chiyo was one of them. The others are in some kind of secretive group. Puppeteers, mostly."

"Hey, I know a puppeteer! Well, just a guy who makes puppets. He's making a few new ones for Kankurou," Naruto said.

"Well you need a very well-trained puppet-maker," Kurogane said. "Anyway, next you would probably need several powerful medic-nins."

"Well, we've got Tsunade, Sakura, and Hinata," Naruto said. "And Gaara is bringing a whole bunch of healers all over the place to heal us and hurry up the exams, so we might convince people to help out the Jinchuuriki."

"Well, okay," Kurogane said. "But there's also one very last factor."

"What's that?"

"The Akatsuki may have cremated the bodies."

"...What?-!"

"Cremate. As in bodies... to ashes."

"I'm not _that_ stupid," Naruto said. "I know what cremate is! But—"

"Shut up a little bit," Kurogane said, covering Naruto's face with his hand. "I'm from the Sound in the territory of my greatest enemy-country's ally. If I'm caught here, I'll get taken in for some questioning. Probably live long enough to escape. You, however, will get killed for treason." He winced, putting a hand on his shoulder. Stupid girl bit him... Probably a bit poisonous like Orochimaru's bite.

"What happened?"

"I think one of your friends bit me," he muttered, getting off of the sink and looking through cabinets for bandages.

"Kiba?"

"Is Kiba the guy with the big dog?"

"Yes."

"No. It was a girl. She kind of reminded me of you actually. A mix of you and Orochimaru. And she knew Orochimaru's techniques."

(Naruto + Orochimaru...: who?) Naruto made a face at the thought: a blond guy with a whiskers, a funny tongue, and a stretchable neck... Hm... Naruchimaru!

"Orochimaru's techniques?" Naruto asked. "The only person I know who worked with Orochimaru is Sasuke, but I'm pretty sure he's not a girl," Naruto said. "Then again, his hair is a bit longer than it used to be. Maybe you hit your head and thought he was a girl?"

"No...I remember her from some time a while ago. Like when I was little or something," Kurogane said. He shrugged, bandaging his shoulder. "Where's your fox?"

Naruto froze. He looked around. HE LOST VIKKI! "Aw shit!" he swore. "Vikki! Vikki, you stupid fox, where'd you—"

Kurogane covered his mouth again. "Are you going to keep your voice down or do I just have to sew your lips shut?"

Naruto shook his head and was released. "Uh...speaking of relatively useless sidekicks and pets, where's Madoka?"

"She's not all that useless. She can..." Kurogane glared at Naruto. "She's...working with a new person. Apparently, Orochimaru-sama decided that she'd be of more use for this other person than with me, so he took her and gave her to someone else... She can still write to me though, and Orochimaru-sama says she won't get hurt with this guy."

"Really?" Naruto asked. He didn't think Kurogane would ever be willing to let her go, as overprotective as he was. "So who's this other guy?"

His glare strengthened, his eye twitching like Gaara when he was under a lot of pressure. Or when he was really really irritated. "...No idea..." He looked away and began covering his red eyes with the bandages as Naruto stared at Kurogane, full of disbelief.

"...WHAT?-!"

* * *

Madoka dared to grin in managing to ensnare Kurogane's enemy in a webs of strings, as well as several passersby from the crowd. All she had to do was keep the threads still, several in between her teeth. However, they began to burn.

She yelped and released the strings. Too much chakra? She never had enough chakra! Not enough to burn! All of a sudden, shewas stuck. As stiff as a board and laying flat out on the ground like a worm. She wiggled around, trying to escape this undefended position.

'Kuro-kun!' she wanted to shout. 'Heeeeeeeelp meeeee!'

But then, Madoka experienced a most uncomfortable sensation of being grabbed by the stomach. It felt as it someone had grabbed her and was swinging her around in circles. Oh dear... she was being summoning. She needed to get out of this position.

Madoka closed her eyes as the whirling sensation faded away. She wasn't laying on the ground anymore. She was now facedown on dusty carpet. Her eyes watered. She really wanted to sneeze, but couldn't in this unmovable position. Madoka heard someone talking, but proceeded to ignore them, focusing on stopping all chakra movement inside her body. It wasn't hard. She had exceptional control and below average amount of chakra, so it was easy enough to stop it up. It took a few short moments, and she was then able to move again.

Madoka quickly pushed herself off the ground and nearly ended up falling backwards. She sneezed three times and wiped the dust from her face. Eeew. She felt around the room and listened to the voices around her.

"...that is Ishidoro Madoka, from my Hidden Sound Village," a...snaky voice said. "She's blind, but she's good enough to send me detailed reports of your doings in our language. Of course, she'll have to send it to another person to translate it from Braille to Japanese, but...I trust them well enough to do things correctly without fault. They are all I can spare for now."

It was the snake bastard! Since Kurogane hated Orochimaru, Madoka did as well.

"Wormtail...lend Miss Madoka a hand. We wouldn't want a bad report for maltreatment, would we...?" another voice said. Another snaky voice... TWO snake bastards? What had Madoka gotten herself into?

Grubby, fat fingers grabbed her arm and pulled her up, leading her to a rather dusty chair. Madoka took her time, dusting off the dirt from the chair and sat down staring straight ahead.

"Good. Now, Madoka is not to be mistreated in any way. You would treat her as if she were _not_ your servant or a 'mudblood' as you put it. Answer her questions, and I'm sure you'll all get along fine... fufufufufufufufu..." There goes Orochimaru's freaky laugh again... Madoka felt his presence disappear from her senses. One less person to get rid of. She turned her head in the direction of the voices.

"So, um...I'm Ishidoro Madoka."

She was greeted in return by the sound of silence.

"Alright... I'm Ishidoro Madoka. I was born blind, and I am a kunoichi from the Hidden Sound Village. I like hot tea, soup, and talking."

She could practically feel the stares focusing on her.

"Uh...how's the weather?"

"..." More silence

"Wow, what a _scintillating_ conversation. It's no surprise why you guys are so popular and well-known, that even _I_ know who you are," Madoka said sarcastically. "But seriously, who are you people?"

"I'm Pete—" the man's voice was cut off by a hiss.

"You're _Pete_? What an ugly name!" Madoka exclaimed. "No offense, by the way..."

"No, no, I'm Wormtail," the man said. It sounded like a ratty name. Or a possum-y name! "A-a-a-and this is my Lord V-V-V-Voldemort."

"Uh... Vevevevoldemort or just Voldemort?" Madoka asked, imitating the man's stuttering voice.

"Voldemort."

"Oh. Okay." More silence... The suspense was just killing her. "Can I touch your face?"

"E-excuse me?"

"Fine, can I touch _his_ face? I kind of can't see..." No one said anything, so Madoka stood up, walked straight towards the voices and had her hands in front of her. Surprisingly, she didn't feel anything.

"...Huh?" She moved her hands lower, positive that the Voldemort guy was somewhere near here.

"H-h-he's l-lower th-than that," the worm-man said.

"Uh..."

She could feel someone glaring up at her. Madoka hesitated. Whoever this guy was, he was _short_. And he better not bite her...

Madoka poked something slimy and scaly. She froze, and felt around it. It was like a crouched _thing_.

"You are the ugliest monkey-baby thing I have ever felt," Madoka said plainly.

"Show some respect!" the worm-man said. "_This_, girl, is Lord Voldemort!"

"Well, Mister Voldemort, may I asked you a question?"

"Don't ask if you're going to do it anyway," the angry voice said.

"Okay. Who—no, _what_ the hell were your parents?"

"..." No one really knew what to say after that.

* * *

This was not Shino's best day. He was currently hiding from the mass hordes of girls and boys. It was his fanclub. Perhaps fanclubs were in this year. Or perhaps this was some sort of cruel joke from a Weasley. Or God. Either way, his fanclub was not alone. Apparently, there was a Photography Club, and the wicked leader of the club was the notorious Creevey. Shinob would have to remind to destroy him later. Actually, that was more of an Uchiha thing. Better avoid that. Either way, someone had spread a completely ridiculous rumor that there was a 10 Galleon reward for whoever gets a picture of his face.

Current status: underground. Not literally. He was in hiding in the least likeliest of places: Hagrid's hut among the skrewts. He was relatively safe as long as he kept his guard up. Whenever a skrewt got uncomfortably close, his bugs would swarm them. Sasuke, Neji, and Lee were on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest, training Harry Potter. Which was what their teachers were supposed to do, not the younger shinobi. Knowing them, they'd probably beat the poor guy half to death without proper adult supervision.

Kankurou was with him as Shino. It was some time after classes, and Kankurou was doing his best to avoid someone. He especially seemed to enjoy watching these sadistic acts of the fanclubs and photographers. It was the bully within. First it was Sasuke, now it was him. Couldn't this puppet obsessed freak get a life?

A ditsy looking Ravenclaw girl approached the pumpkin patch were Kankurou was currently cutting the most idiotic faces into pumpkins with Tenten's knife from the Great Hall.

"Hello..." the girl said.

"...Hi?" Kankurou frowned. "Or, if you're stalking Shino, then he's right here."

Shino twitched under his sunglasses.

"No. I'm following you." It was Shino's turn to watch in amusement, as Kankurou wondered, 'Why was this strange girl following him?'

"Um...okay." Kankurou stared at her. "...What do you want?"

"Nothing."

... It was very quiet. Shino relaxed again. This girl had no camera. Shino began stood up out of the pumpkin patch.

"Hello, Shino Aburame," the girl said.

"Hi." He was about to leave when he ran into... Filch?

"You're that drug dealing kid," Filch said.

Shino looked at him. "What are you doing outside?"

"Catching hoodlums like you!" Filch said, grabbing him and Kankurou by the arm. Somehow, he managed to 'grab' the other girl. No...she was just following Kankurou.

"Don't you have a hallway to sweep?" Shino wondered. Even Filch can't sweep outside.

"Where is Headmaster Dumbledore?-!" Filch said to an intimidated looking first-year Hufflepuff.

"Th-the infirmary, I think," she replied. And thus, the two shinobi plus the dazed girl were taken to Pomfrey's infirmary. Filch barged inside, where Madam Pomfrey, looking quite irritated by the Caretaker of Hogwarts, told him that Dumbledore was currently in a private meeting at the end of the infirmary, where Filch proceeded to drag them.

"Headmaster Dumbledore!" Filch said, barging into closed curtains around a bed. "I caught Aburame, his face-painted friend, and this girl outside in the pumpkin patch!"

Instead, he found himself staring straight into the black eyes of a very intimidating potions professor.

"Oh...Severus. Hi."

"What is it that is so important that you need to interrupt this meeting?" he asked Filch. Shino looked and saw all of his shinobi teachers, plus Dumbledore and Professor Snape, were inside. Probably discussing something important. Without him. Shino sighed to himself. As usual, he was left out of the _important_ business.

"Oh, I caught Aburame dealing drugs to this Ravenclaw girl!" Filch said, releasing Shino and Kankurou and pointing an accusing finger at the girl, who smiled and hummed to herself.

Anko was sitting on an infirmary cot with bandages on her arm. Next to her was Asuma, with tissues stuck up his nose. Was there a fight? Everyone else was sitting around her, probably discussing something important. Of course, once Anko starting giggling, it turned to laughter. Soon, almost everyone was laughing at Filch, Shino and the Ravenclaw girl.

"Argus, Ms. Lovegood, Mr. Sabaku," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling, "you may leave."

"But Headmaster Dumble—"

"Argus, Aburame Shino is _not_ a drug dealer." Filch left, grumbling to himself.

"Shino..." Kurenai said. "You are not being very inconspicuous, wearing all of those large jackets. It's not even cold yet."

"..." was Shino's silent refusal to remove his outer clothing.

"I don't see what's the big deal with his jackets," Professor Snape sneered. "It's not as if he's _hiding_ something... Of course it doesn't look inconspicuous."

Shino looked at the potions professor, and then at the others.

"He knows..." Kurenai affirmed. Shino's eyes may have widened. "...He knows Anko is a vampire."

Oh.

"But that's not what you're here for," Kakashi said. "We've recieved recent reports that fanclubs are sprouting in every which direction. Including you. Your club is one of the more popular ones, mainly because of the prize money for those who get a photo of your face. But that's not important. In any case...er, Professor Snape?"

"What?"

"Can you leave?" Anko asked.

Professor Snape glared poisonously at the group.

"Fine," he said, leaving with his robes billowing behind him.

"Good," Kakashi said. "Now in any case, Sasuke has recently been neglecting practice. He is, as usual, excelling in all classes, but whenever he finishes his work, he tends to disappear."

"You want me to spy on him."

"Exactly. Well, we want you to bug him, but close enough to the truth."

"That's fine with me," Shino said. "May I leave now?"

"Sure, we wouldn't want your fanclub to catch up with you," Dumbledore said with a smile.

'Great,' Shino thought bitterly as he left the room and passed by Harry who was looking very beat up and was being carried by Lee. Just was he needed... Another reminder of these ever-growing fanclubs.

* * *

Kurogane said that he was going to keep watching Naruto as he fought. It was almost noon when he and everyone woke up. Naruto was tired. Everyone in the house was frantically scrambling around, getting ready. Thirty minutes until the end of the Treasure Hunt portion of the Chuunin Exam was over and they still weren't ready. Gaara was outside, busy with Tsunade, as they made sure all preparations for the next section were foolproof.

It was chaos inside the Kazekage's office. Shikamaru had walked in on Sakura getting out of the shower. Sakura punched Shikamaru out into the hallway and Temari kicked her boyfriend out of the building. As soon as that part of the beating was over, Gaara hit him as well.

"I understand why Sakura hit me. And Temari too," Shikamaru muttered as the Kazekage, looking rather grumpy, returned to the preparations, "but why Gaara?" But he found it too troublesome to dwell on.

Ten minutes before they were going to meet with the rest of the teams, Gahiji freaked out when he thought that Naruto had forgotten to go through with whatever plan he had ready. After five minutes of yelling and shouting, he realized that the missing items were already there. And none of them were stolen.

And so, the chuunin exam proctors and the genin applicants, left the building, rushed. It was a good thing that the meeting place was on the training grounds right across from the building. Gahiji almost had no time to beautify himself with jewelry and gold.

"Alright," Gaara said loudly, once most of the teams had assembled. Everyone had turned their items in, and it had taken almost half an hour to check off all of the items that had been collected. "We began with forty-eight chuunin exam participants, with fifteen teams and three solo genins. The list of the top 32 who have passed this test are listed here! Genins whose surnames begin with A-G go to the Hokage Tsunade! H-M go to Tsunade's assistant, Haruno Sakura! N-S to my assistant Sabaku Temari with the large fan. T-Z come to me!"

Genins made lines. Everyone was pushing each other out of the way. Although Naruto had been near the front, somehow, he ended up near the end.

Things went relatively quickly, taking only twenty minutes to get some names off. Although there were frequent arguments on how the test was 'unfair', Tsunade, Sakura, Temari, and Gaara were all intimidating enough to snuff out these protestors. Somehow, Gaara was not surprised that Naruto and Mikoto's team were the only ones who got every single item on the list, despite the fact that the day before, they were missing roughly forty items altogether.

"Here, Shikamaru," Temari said, handing Shikamaru the list of names. While the kages explained the test, Sakura, Shikamaru, Temari, and Mariku were to draw up a tournament chart.

"Now!" Tsunade said, "I'm sure that many of you are protesting about this test! However, the objective of this part of the exam was not only to test your seeking skills, but also your ability to TRICK us!"

"How could we do that?" someone asked.

"Simple! There were not enough items for every single team! There were even items that did not exist at all!"

("In this world," Gaara added in an undertone.)

"The only five genins to have solved this problem were: Uzumaki Naruto! Furoshiki Houtai! Mikoto Makoto! (there were a few laughs at that name) Mineko Aizesu! And Husani Gahiji! Look at this!" She picked up an item from a bag. "This is a ki-lin horn!"

There were a few people murmering in the crowd. Apparently, no one had found it but those she had listed.

"A ki-lin horn is, in short, a UNICORN horn! Tell me, has anyone ever seen a unicorn? No one? Well that's because there _is none_! Watch!" She threw it onto the ground and it made a 'poof'. The horn was gone. "IT WAS GENJUTSU! FORTY OF THESE PEOPLE'S ITEMS IN TOTAL WERE TOTALLY COMPLETELY FAKE! And very convincing fakes as well. I doubt many had the skill to make something as solid as this...BUT ARE YOU ALL IDIOTS? UNICORNS DON'T EXIST!"

("In this world.")

"They're singling us out," Gahiji hissed to Aizesu. "Sooo not fair."

"It's on purpose," Houtai said. "You keep on praising one group or one person to increase the amount of resentment to others."

"Sorry guys," Naruto said, scratching his head with a sheepish grin. "I'm guessing Tsunade just wants to give me a challenge."

"No problemo!" Mikoto said. "The only thing I'm annoyed with is the fact that she said my first and last name out loud to _everyone_..."

"Tsunade-sama," Sakura whispered to her. "Okay, we don't need anymore stalling. We finished the chart."

"Alright, make it big so everyone can see," she said to Sakura. She took out a wand and waved it over the sheet of paper.

"_Engorgio_." The sheet of paper grew in size. ('Ooooh...coooool...') "Okay people!" Sakura said. "The name listed above your box is the name of the person who will supervise your fight! And the name of the person sharing your box is, obviously, the person you are going to fight! I am Sakura; you all know the Hokage Tsunade and the Kazekage Gaara; Temari is the one with the big fan, as Gaara had said earlier; next to her is Shikamaru, the...the one sleeping on his feet; Baki is the man with half his face covered; Mariku is the other blond kunoichi standing on Gaara's other side; and Fuji... (hm... who's Fuji again...?), oh, Fuji is the lonely guy on the end shooting glares at me! Go to the person whom you were assigned to and we'll take you to a separate training arena that we will use as the tournament set-up."

As soon as Sakura finished speaking, Naruto waved a brief goodbye to his temporary allies, now rivals, and headed for Tsunade.

"Tsunade-baasan!" he said.

"Don't call me that in front of people, kid," Tsunade said, pulling Naruto's ears.

"Owowowow, yes, old lady! Leggo!" Naruto whined, trying to get away. Someone scoffed at the two of them.

"I'm Kurei, your opponent for today," a voice said. Naruto turned around to find a narrow-eyed boy scowling at him.

"You look funny," Naruto said. Tsunade slapped him across the head. "Ow!"

"I guess I'm just lucky to fight an idiot," Kurei muttered.

"Are you kidding?" Naruto said. "_You're_ older than _I_ am. That means you failed more than me! How could I be worse than you?"

Tsunade sighed. Already, he was picking a fight with someone else.

"More than you?" Kurei retorted. "I'm pretty sure that you've probably failed this twice then, although this is just my first time trying out."

"Are you tired, old lady?" Naruto asked, not really paying attention to the older shinobi. "Don't worry. This is going to be the fastest fight in the history of the chuunin exams!"

"I am thinking the same thing," the other boy said. "But don't worry, I'll make this as painful as possible."

Naruto laughed. "Well, I guess I'll be giving you the biggest nosebleed of your life!"

"You won't come anywhere near my face!"

"I know I won't!"

"..." _Now_ Kurei was confused. Tsunade had a sinking feeling in her stomach. She had a bad feeling about this... She gave Naruto a good, long look, making sure he got the point. She didn't want any trouble from him. No playing around.

Naruto may have acknowledged Tsunade's silent warning, but it didn't mean he was going to obey it.

"Begin!" Tsunade said, bringing her hand down. Kurei immediately took a defensive stance, but...it was all in vain. Because this was, indeed, the shortest battle in the history of the chuunin exams.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Kurei was suddenly surrounded by a large number of shadow doppelgangers. "It doesn't matter what type of illusion you use, it won't work against m—"

"OIROKE NO JUTSU!" all of the Narutos cried. All of those from the Leaf who remembered this technique froze when they heard Naruto.

"That idiot..." Kurogane muttered, hidden somewhere in the crowd. It Naruto's ninja harem.

Practically the entire city of the Hidden Sand was silent. Kurei was shocked beyond words, glaring at Naruto.

"What the hell is up with this?-!" he shouted at Naruto. "I want a _serious_ fight not--"

All of a sudden, the Oiroke-fied Naruto's all ran straight at Kurei and tackled him to the ground, hiding him completely from view of the few people watching the fights. All of a sudden, the pile of Naruto-girls blew up, and almost everything disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

All except two: Naruto, now returned to his original state, and Kurei, who was laying on the ground with a bloody nose. He was still smoking from the explosion tag.

Tsunade was still staring.

"Tsunade-baasan! It's over, it's over! I'm the fastes—"

Naruto's joyous shouting was cut off by an explosion louder than he had ever heard before. The level of sand beneath his feet seemed lower, as if he was standing in a large pit.

He turned around and looked in the direction of the explosion, but all he saw was a giant dome of sand. The sand at the top was moving back to the ground. All of the sand that had moved was returning to the ground and from inside, a large pillar of smoke poured out, reminding Naruto of a large, wide chimney. Or a volcano. No one really said anything for several moments.

"Uh..." Naruto said. "...That was from Gaara's arena."

They ditched Kurei's body, Naruto's win having just been recorded, and headed in the direction of Gaara and his two genins. The sand dome was finally much lower. They saw Gaara coughing and waving away the smoke with a thin sheet of...sand, but where were...

"Shit, Gaara, you buried your genins!" Naruto cried, pointing an accusing finger first at Gaara, then at a mound of sand. "The point of the exams is _not_ to test who you can or cannot kill!"

"No one's dead here," Gaara said, "I was just saving us a lot of trouble and keeping them from causing any more trouble than they already are." He waved his hand, and the sand dispersed, revealing Mikoto underneath it all.

"You blew Mikoto up too?-!" Naruto asked, running for the girl as Gaara looked at the sand underneath his feet, searching for the girl he had submerged six feet exactly underground. Tsunade immediately began to heal Mikoto (Kurei is long forgotten...), who was burnt all over.

"What happened?" Naruto asked the Kazekage.

"The girl from the Stone, Iwajima Ikko, had a clay bomb almost like Deidara's bombs. Only this one had some sort of a fuse, a string, and black powder. Ikko used a bunshin to light it up while she dug herself into the ground where it was much safer. This bomb was a lot of fire, so the sand, being more resistant than grass, cloth, or any other object within this area, was the safest place to hide. Meanwhile, the bomb wasn't too big, but, apparently, she had scattered these ignitable bombs all over after briefly distracting Mikoto and all of them were set off by the smaller one. I saw it and covered Mikoto up quickly, but the layer of sand was to thin. Mikoto was unconscious but her clothes were burning a bit, so I covered her in a bit of sand to smother it. Ikko was endangering practically the entire neighborhood—including my office—and it was all overkill, so since she was already hidden in the sand, I just made the sand around her...unmovable. She might have dug herself down there, but it'll take something a bit stronger to get her out."

"Well let her out before she suffocates," Naruto said.

"I think she should stay down there just a little longer. Just to make sure she learns her lesso—"

"Gaara, Naruto, Tsunade-sama!" Sakura said, running towards them. "What happened?"

Gaara sighed, looking at Naruto. "You explain," he said.

"Mikoto's opponent from the Stone beat Mikoto but nearly destroyed the area in the process," Naruto said, "so Gaara buri—" The sand underneath Naruto suddenly grew much higher, causing him to fall over, as Gaara parted the sand to reveal one of those 'gorilla' women that Naruto had stolen items from. Yikes. It was just bad luck for Mikoto, then, to be matched up with her.

"So will Mikoto be okay?" Sakura asked.

"Yes," Tsunade said, picking the girl up. "I'll take her to the clinic." The clinic was just a nearby empty building that they were using to keep those injured from the chuunin exams.

"Mikotoooo!" Mariku called, running straight at them like a missile. Tsunade backed away from her warily as Mariku ran at an amazing speed towards her sister. "What kind of powder was that? Don't tell me that you've been going through my things again...!"

"It was the Stone girl," Gaara said tiredly. He coughed. That stupid girl! Made him inhale a lungful of smoke. "Aside from finishing off the rest of the preliminaries, which may take an hour at most, the rest of the day is done. Genins heal and we all relax for a while. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm leaving."

"Are you sure you should just leave?" Sakura asked. "You probably breathed in a lot of smoke and all. Maybe you should go to the clinic with Tsunade as well?"

"She already has enough people to heal," Gaara said, "as do you. All I need is to... to think."

"Alright," she said hesitantly. "If you say—" Mariku ran past Sakura, practically blowing the words right out of Sakura's mouth.

"Are you sure Mikoto's alright?" Mariku asked Tsunade frantically, who had been trying to do her best to carry Mikoto away without attracting the other girl's attention. "She's not waking up! What's wrong with her? She's not dead right? Right?"

"Go away. Your sister is fine," Tsunade assured her with over exaggerated patience and a stress mark on her forehead. "She's just been blown up, that's all."

"Eeaargh! That isn't very comforting!" Mariku cried, pulling her short hair.

"Look, Makoto, if you bother me about Mikoto one more time, then I'll _drop_ her and hit you _so _hard, it'll take you _days _to return to the Sand!" the Hokage said angrily, pushing the girl away with her foot. Mariku flew several feet and somehow managed to land face first in the sand. She sat up and spat it out of her mouth, pawing at her tongue.

"Uh...yeah, anyway, shouldn't you guys be recording the wins and losses?" Naruto said. "And your fights over already too, Sakura?"

"Yeah, it was amazing!" Sakura said. "Not the fight itself. I've seen a lot more things that were much more impressive..."

"Gee, thanks," Aizesu said from behind them. Sakura had been her examiner when she fought a girl named Junko, who was also one of the kunoichi from the Hidden Rock Village that Naruto and Gahiji had encountered earlier.

"You're welcome," Sakura said. "But honestly, I was surprised at how similar your techniques were to the Inuzukas'. Almost exactly like when Naruto fought Kiba."

"Inuzuka...Kiba?" Aizesu repeated. "Hm...I think that's the clan that our moves are based on. We tried using dogs, but it didn't go well in the desert. Our breed of cats have much thinner fur, so it was easier on them when staying out in the sun all day. Otherwise, yeah, I think the original founders of our Mineko clan was a companion of an Inuzuka. So...I guess Mikoto didn't make it?"

"Nope." Naruto shrugged. "Pity. I wanted to see the rest of her arsenal."

"Stick around long enough and you'll see it," someone muttered darkly. Naruto and Aizesu jumped at the sound of the voice and spun around to find Houtai standing behind them. "None of the Makotos' experiments are private. They might keep whatever they're doing a secret, but it only takes a week or so for one of them to make a mistake and accidentally disperse half their year-supply of scents and powders throughout the village."

"Oh come on," Aizesu said, having recovered from her shock. "It was never _that_ bad. I'm guessing you passed, from the way you are completely unscathed."

"Hardly broke a sweat," Houtai said, almost with a hint of pride.

Mariku rolled her eyes. "Honestly, this guy is the cruelest person I've ever met," she said. "He just tied some poor girl up head to toe and waited for her to pass out from lack of oxygen."

"I released her in the end."

"After I threatened to use my powder on you, of course."

"That girl is still alive."

Mariku just laughed. "No scars, at least, then right? I mean, she might go into a coma, but at least she doesn't have anything _permanent._"

"I shouldn't laugh..." Sakura said with a smile.

"Where's Giji-kun?" Aizesu wondered, looking around. "Is he still fighting?"

"Yes," Houtai said. "Temari is the examiner. He's fighting a boy named Seta from the Mist."

"Let's go check them out," she said. "If Seta wins, then we'll see his moves. If it's Giji-kun who wins, then I don't have to worry about my next fight. I fight the winner of Temari's genins."

"I don't think Gahiji's _that_ bad," Naruto said.

"Yeah, but you don't know all of his moves. Giji-kun _is_ pretty good. Really good, actually, and he _seems_ random to other people, but I know every single move he'll make."

"Same thing goes for you," Houtai said to Aizesu. "Gahiji and Aizesu train and fight together often," he explained to the others, "so they know each other's basic techniques."

"Gahiji likes making you fall, and jumping on you to pin you down with his feet and keeping his staff thing about an inch above your face," Aizesu said. "And then he'll say, 'Haha, you're dead.' It's really annoying really."

"You sound like he's done it to you a lot," Sakura said.

"...He has," the girl replied, "but I always pay him back what he's due."

"Whenever Aizesu wins, she says, 'Take that, bitchez!'" Mariku said with a grin.

"Oh, hey, look, look, look, he's doing that thing again," Aizesu said as they all approached the training area that Gahiji and Seta were using. "Looks like the fight is almost over I guess..."

Gahiji ran forward and thrust his pole straight into the enemy's forehead. Both ends looked flat, with identical metal plates on the end. Seta flew back and rolled several feet onto his back.

"Oh loo, there's his mistake..." Mariku said as Gahiji kept running straight at the fallen boy. Gahiji jumped high in the air, swinging his staff, and brought it down. Had it landed on Seta's head, the metal end probably would have cracked the skull. But Gahiji's staff had hit the sand, right above Seta's head. The boy had a funny look on his face. He was baring his teeth, almost a grin, but his eyes were wide and he was sweating. "The kid should have rolled to the side instead of straight backwards."

"Haha, you're dead," Gahiji said, looking down at the boy with a grin.

"And Husani Gahiji wins!" Temari announced to no one in particular. The few people watching clapped eagerly at the display as Gahiji stepped off of the boy's shoulders and helped him up. She looked around for Shikamaru and found him still watching his own battle. No...he was just staring at the sky. Waiting for one of his genins to kill the other.

"Shika-kun! You're kids are killing each other and you're busy staring at white cotton in the sky!" Temari roared, running over there, trying to get there before his genins tore each other apart. Shikamaru should have done it himself. He knew how troublesome it was, rearranging competition because of ties.

"Wow," Aizesu said, clapping her hands for Gahiji as he helped Seta over. Good sportsmanship. It made girls think he was a really nice guy, who just happened to be really fast, strong, and handsome. "I fight you next, Giji-kun. Looks like I don't have much to worry about then."

"I know," Gahiji said. "I normally don't beat up pretty girls, but you're too stuck up for my tastes. I'll make it quick and get back to looking at the nice and pretty ones. Like Mikoto or something."

"She's twelve years old!" Aizesu said.

"You pedophile! You peek up my sister's skirt and I'll kick your sorry butt!" Mariku said. Luckily for Gahiji, Sakura had grabbed the older Makoto sister by the shoulders and kept her from running away.

"Oh come on, nobody wants to stay single. I go for small, frail girls. And I'm sure that when she's older, she'll become very nice and womanly, hehehe..."

Aizesu and Mariku struck Gahiji, causing him to fall on the floor. Along with Gahiji, his opponent who was leaning on Gahiji's shoulder fell over as well.

"Ow..." Gahiji whimpered. So many bumps and bruises.

"We should all go back to the infirmary," Houtai said.

"Oooh, Houtai wants to look at the healer-nins," Gahiji said in a sing-song voice. "Houtai likes the nuuuursee—auhg!"

"Death by bandages..." Gahiji found a bandage around his throat, much to his freaking-out-ness and everyone else's amusement. Sure, Houtai might have had that murderous gleam in his eye, and sure, Gahiji found himself gagging and passing out for air for almost five minutes, but it was all in fun anyway.

"Let's go!" Mariku said.

"Go where?" Sakura asked her.

"To see Mikoto, of course!" she said. "You guys go there, and I'll meet up with you in a bit and drag Maruko out of the shop."

"Nah, I really don't feel like going..." Gahiji said, shrugging.

"Visit her now!" Mariku said, grabbing him by the front of the shirt.

"Yes, captain..." Mariku left. "I am sooo not into Mikoto. Not if she'll grow up to be as frightening like that... I don't wanna go."

"Well we should," Aizesu said.

"_Why_?"

Aizesu pointed at Seta, who was still on the ground. "First of all, I think we lost your Seta guy. Second, you're bleeding from the head. Do you _want_ a scar?"

"I think a scar will make me look very dashing," Gahiji said. His teeth 'ping'ed, showing remarkable a frightening similarity to Lee and Gai.

"Oh, shut up."

* * *

"Hey midget wake up!" Gahiji cried, kicking open the doors open.

"Don't call me a midget, you pervert!" Mikoto shouted, throwing a pillow full-speed at Gahiji.

"Oh my!" Gahiji said, pretending to look faint, "It hurts so much! Mikoto, you cruel girl, you, throwing a pillow at a defenseless man like me!"

Aizesu pushed him aside as she, Houtai, and Naruto walked inside, helping Seta to a bed. Sakura had left earlier. "Hey, loser," she said cheerfully. "I heard you got blown up and _survived_. What are you, a cockroach?"

"I'm unkillable," the girl replied with a grin and a shrug. "Though not unbeatable, I guess..."

"Eh, you've got a few more years to go," Gahiji said, poking at an unconscious person in the bed next to her. "Houtai's sixteen now. So long as you don't stay a genin until then, then it's all good."

"I'm guessing that all of you guys made it to the next round?" Mikoto asked them.

"Uh...yeah," Naruto said.

"But don't worry, you won't be alone for long. Giji-kun isn't making it to the round after this," Aizesu said. "Because he was just unlucky enough to have to fight _me_ next."

"I can't hit girls," Gahiji said, "but for you, darling, I'll make an exception. Sorry to break it to you: _I'm_ going to make it to the last battle. But you have to know that even though I beat the hell out of you, I'll still love you forever."

"Mikooootooo!" a voice said. "You're awake!"

Mariku suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the air and tackled her younger sister in the bed.

"It's alive!" she cried.

"Urgh, Mariku, geroffa me!" Mikoto said, pushing her sister off the bed. "You're butt is squishing me, get off!"

Mariku gasped, after recovering from the impact she made on the floor. "I'll have you know that my butt is _not _squishing you," she said indignantly, crossing her arms in front of her. She turned to the others with a grin. "Congratulations on your fights guys," she said to them. "Oh, by the way, Naruto, did you know that you just set the world record of shortest chuunin exam battle ever?"

"YOU'RE KIDDING ME!" everyone in the room shouted. Naruto grinned proudly.

"I'm not kidding anyone," Mariku said. "It's being recorded right now, although they're also putting a small side note that you used a rather... unorthodox technique."

"I did _not_ cheat," Naruto said. Everyone looked at him curiously. "All's fair in love and war," he said. "This is neither, but you could always pretend it's a war. A fight anyway."

"He used something called the Sexy no Jutsu or something," she said to the others. They sweatdropped, but Naruto and Gahiji exchanged glances, both having the same thing on their mind.

_Sexy no jutsu!_

_Bishounen no jutsu!_

The room sparkled as the two boys 'duked' it out, posing for each other. Girls saw Gahiji's 'bishounen' form and fell into blissful absentmindedness. Guys saw Naruto's 'sexy' form and passed out from nosebleeds. Together, no sex could ever stand against them! Unless their enemy was, perhaps, Haku or Deidara, since they really had no gender...

They returned to their normal bodies and stared at each other with new understanding and sparkly eyes, both thinking, 'I have found you, wayward brother!'

They give each other a high-five. "We are geniuses!" Gahiji and Naruto said with teary eyes.

"You are idiots!" Aizesu and Tsunade shouted, pounding the boys into the ground.

"This is a hospital, so you better act like you're in one!" Tsunade said to them as Naruto peeled himself off the floor.

"It's not a hospital," he muttered under his breath. "It's just an empty building that we're using like a hospital."

"Then just pretend it's a hospital! There are people here trying to get some rest!"

"Oh, speaking of rest, Maruko, uh, well..." Mariku said. "You should consider yourself lucky enough to have caught his attention, at least."

"What do you mean? Is he here?"

"Well, he left the shop to come here and see you."

"...then where is he?"

"Oh, he's in the next room with a medic-nin. He passed out just a moment after we left in the middle of the street from three days without any sleep and food, working on Kankurou's puppets, the idiot..." Mariku said, shaking her head. "And he calls _me_ stupid..."

"Well, you _are_..."

"Oh be quiet, Mikoto," Mariku said with a grin, ruffling her little sister's hair, much to her chagrin.

* * *

Gaara was sitting around, relaxing. Some girl had approached him earlier bearing gifts: Yokan. Sweet bean jelly. He hated that stuff, and she just handed a box of them to him. Yuck. It was too sweet for him. There was nothing to do. While he was at Hogwarts, he had contacted many high-ranking medic-nins and invited them all to watch the chuunin exam without a fee in exchange for their healing techniques to speed along the exams. There was less than a week left of it. He had nothing to do until he returned to Hogwarts.

He left the box of yokan sitting next to him, but didn't touch it. He didn't really feel like throwing it away. As much as he disliked having groupies following him around all the time giving him gifts, he would rather not make enemies of them. He learned a while ago not to underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

So Gaara kept the box, not really eating any of it. Someone approached from behind him. He gathered the chakra and sand, just in case and turned around to find...

"Sakura."

"Hey, Gaara," Sakura said, jogging up to him. "I was wondering where you had gone. It's a nice view up here, isn't it?" She leaned on the edge of the roof. Gaara watched her warily. She backed away from the edge of the roof and sat next to him. Gaara stared at the box of yokan buns fixatedly.

"Are you hungry?" Sakura asked him.

"No," he said. He took the box and handed it to her. "I don't want it."

Sakura opened the box and smiled. "Thanks," she said, eating it. Gaara stared at her. How could she eat those things?-! Girls. They all liked sweets way to much. Then again, it kept things easy. You always knew what to get them as gifts. Candy and other sweet junk.

They sat in silence. Gaara was just thinking. The Kadaj traders were probably well on their way with the dress by now anyway. But it didn't matter. It might have looked good on Sakura—not that he was really admitting anything just yet—but it was too...extravagent for a small festival held in the Great Hall of Hogwarts. Maybe a formal or a ball, but not a festival including, what, seventeen people? Not much. It was more of a gown than a kimono anyway. It didn't matter if the Fire Emperor's fat daughter stretched it. He'd never see it again, and it was too bad for Sakura, but he wasn't going to go running across the desert to chase after a caravan and get some dress that probably cost a fortune, since he had just recently found out that it was made in Yoshiko's younger days, when she was even more so famous across the world for her tailor skills. Not only for shinobi gear, but for beautiful garments, unique styles, and multiple-use outfits. It probably cost a lot.

No, Gaara wouldn't go chasing after some dress for no good reason.

They sat there in silence. It was kind of comfortable.

* * *

(1) Gizzard: edible bird stomach/pieces

* * *

**My Thinking Corner**

CHAPTER 13! Yeeeaaaaaaah! I'm making this as brief as possible. There are five days of the chuunin exam left, in which two are spent only healing. So, there are two days of healing, two days of fighting (which shouldn't take too long), and one day where all non-genin shinobi who have watched the exams come together and discuss who passes as a genin and who fails. So it'll be like...two more chapters and the chuunin exam part is done! I'll be knocking as many people out of the chuunin exams as possible and all that good stuff. (typing as fast as possible!) Soon, everyone will be returning to Hogwarts.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14: It's Not Easy Being Gaara

(This is the next day)

Gaara was currently having a nice, small 'family' dinner at his office, which Gaara was seriously thinking of moving into (honestly, what was the use of having a house if he didn't even sleep—er, stay in it?). His family was currently consist of himself, Temari, and Shikam—Temari's boyfriend.

And Sakura and Naruto and Mariku and Mikoto and Baki and Jiraiya and Tsunade and Houtai and Aizesu and Gahiji.

Gaara sighed. Where did these people come from...?

"Don't you guys have somewhere to be?" he asked them earlier as they forced their way inside.

"Nope. We're going to have fun until the chuunin exams tomorrow," Mikoto said. Two days, and she was now completely healed. None of the Makotos were sharing the secret of what had aided in her miraculously quick recovery, as they had politely refused the help of any of the medic-nins.

It _was_ almost comfortable. Not the comfortable he had been when he was just sitting with Sakura on the roof. It was really loud and crowded, so they all moved to the conference room that had been temporarily dubbed the 'living room'.

"Sushi, do you have sushi?" Gahiji asked, going through the fridge.

"I'm sure he has some oysters," Aizesu said, standing behind him.

"No, I don't have any—" Gaara said, but they weren't really paying any attention to the Kazekage.

"Stop standing right behind me, Ai, it's annoying and dangerous."

Aizesu stuck her tongue out at him. "What's so dangerous about standing behind you?"

"I don't know, I could make a stink or something!"

Aizesu moved out of the way.

"Oh, found it!"

"Oysters?"

"And sushi!"

Damn, they found it.

They returned to the conference/living room and set food down on the table.

"Hey, Gaara, you're actually _sharing_ your food?" Temari asked him. Gaara glared at his sister with eyes that said, 'It wasn't not my decision so don't think I'm being nice!'

"Aren't food imports like these expensive?" Sakura asked. Gaara opened his mouth but Mikoto answered before him.

"They are, but Gaarakichi doesn't hate seafood!" she said gleefully.

"Oh, sorry," she said, putting down her chopsticks. (question: do you even eat sushi with chopsticks? I heard that it was, like, hand food. but I can't really tell. Never ate any before...)

"About what?" Gaara asked.

"We're eating your food," Sakura said.

"It doesn't matter how expensive it is, food is meant to be eaten," he said. "Anyway, if you stop eating, everyone will finish it off for you."

"Speaking of finishing off," Mariku said, "Maruko is almost done with the puppets. He says he's had some kind of breakthrough or something like that. He said he ended up doing what Chiyo-sama could not and now he's working faster. Aside from a few minutes yesterday, he hasn't slept a wink since he's started working. Maruko's starting to look like you, Gaara."

"Shouldn't you stop him then?" Tsunade asked.

"Nah, he's having fun."

"A shinobi must always be in prime condition," Jiraiya said.

"Oh, Maruko isn't a shinobi. "He's actually more of a swordsman than a shinobi, and more of a shopkeeper than a swordsman. He's good with a sword and has a thing for making thing and selling them. He's like a shopkeeper swordsman! He can't do genjutsu or ninjutsu, but I showed him basic taijutsu. He's more inventive than anything else. He has plans for making a new blade. One that can cut through anything. Except for living things."

"What's the use of a sword that doesn't cut?" Naruto asked.

"Well, how well can you fight butt-naked?" Mikoto shot back in defense of her siblings.

"So how's everyone dinner?" Temari asked suddenly. "Good? Great. I'll be right back." She ran out of the room.

"What's your sister doing?" Jiraiya asked Gaara.

"If I'm not mistaken..."

Temari returned with a big grin and several bottles in hand. "I'm baaaaaaack!"

"...she's gone to get the alcohol."

Tsunade pat Shikamaru on the back, knocking him over. "I really love your girlfriend! I really hope you guys get married!"

'I really hope they don't... / They better not...' Gaara thought. ((Take your pick. Gaara doesn't like ShikaTema! (GASP!)))

"Oh, and what are you guys doing for the tenth?" Tsunade asked them.

"Dumbledore is letting us use the Great Hall once everyone finishes off the dinner," Shikamaru said.

"Good," Tsunade said. "Naruto, what are you doing?"

Naruto had 'discreetly' grabbed a plate of sushi and oyster off the table and was trying to sneak it up to his (Kankurou's) room.

"Um...bathroom!" he said, running upstairs.

"...I, for one, don't want to know what Naruto is doing in the bathroom with the food," Gahiji said, helping himself to more sushi.

* * *

"I found your fox," Kurogane said when Naruto got into the bathroom and locked the door. He held a mischievous fox up by the scruff of the neck.

"Oh, thanks," Naruto said, taking the fox. "Don't run away too much before we leave you behind," he scolded. Vikki scoffed at him.

As if, Vikki snorted. I'm not so stupid as to disappear when it's time for you to leave the Sand. Now let me out.

Naruto sighed and reopened the door for Vikki to leave and relocked it.

Kurogane took out a letter. "Madoka just wrote back to me," he explained as Naruto scratched his head, looking at the tiny dots. "It says:

'Hi Kuro-kun. I'm working for a guy named Vuldemoret with a ratty guy named Wormtale. At first, I was scared of whoever I was working with until I realized that 'Lord' Vuldemoret was just some mutated, slimy monkey with scales. Weird, huh? He says he was a great wizard, but I just can't imagine him wearing a robe and waving a wand around. I hope you're alright after that fight. Anyway, Oro says sent me here to oversee Vuldemoret's work and doings. But...for some reason, I think I was sent there as punishment. For both of us? I'm kinda worried if Oro knows about our work.  
The annual Sound Attack is coming up soon. Send Naruto a good luck letter or something! And take care of Snuffles for me!

...signed, Madoka," Kurogane finished. "I never heard of this guy before. When you return to Hogwarts, I want you to find all the information you can on him. You'll probably have more luck with this than I will. I don't know much about wizards."

"Got it," Naruto said with a nod. Someone knocked on the bathroom door. Kurogane looked up and disappeared in a puff.

Naruto unlocked the door.

"I heard voices in the bathroom..." Tsunade said suspiciously.

"I'm just giving Vikki a bath!" Naruto said cheerfully, holding up a fox by the scruff of the neck. The fox glared at him, promising him death if Naruto ever decided to stick him in the water. "Oh, this is Vikki, by the way. Some guy at a pet store gave him to me. Want to help give him a bath? He really stinks from running around all day long!"

"Uh...no," Tsunade said. She closed the door. The fox in Naruto's hand turned back into Kurogane.

"She better not have given me a bath..." he muttered to Naruto under his breath.

* * *

Gaara's glaring went completely unnoticed. Shikamaru and Temari were drunk and passed out on a couch in the next room. He had ordered Baki to take back both Jiraiya and Tsunade to their rooms, as they were both staggering around, drunk. The two Makoto girls went back to the Akasuna Dorm, along with Houtai, Gahiji, and Aizesu, the latter two who were still arguing about who was going to kill who in the next battle. And Sakura...

...was sleeping with his arm.

She was sleeping next to him on the couch. Her movement had, at first, been very subtle for a drunk. One moment, she was sitting next to him drinking sake. It was her first drink, not just for the night, but the first taste of alcohol she ever had. Slowly, she began moving closer and closer to Gaara, but that was only to be expected, as everyone was trying to get a seat on one of the only two couches in the building. Eventually, she was leaning on his shoulder, still drinking. By the time she passed out, on her third cup, she was clinging onto his arm. It wasn't uncomfortable. Kinda warm... But Gaara needed to move around. Which brought the panda-eyed kazekage that we love so much to his current dilemma.

Getting away from her before she started to cuddle in her sleep as she had done every night.

Gaara tugged on his arm, but Sakura had some sort of death grip on him. Ohcrapohcrapohcrap... He was stuck! Alright, alright, so long as she didn't start cuddli—

Shit, she was CUDDLING him!

'Okay, okay,' Gaara told himself. 'Whenever she cuddles, it only lasts a few minutes, and then she lets the pillow go. She'll just let go of me in a few minutes to just...be...patient...'

And, for some off reason, Gaara didn't mind being patient anyway. Cuddled, he sat there patiently, waiting for Sakura to finish hugging him in her sleep. Until Naruto came down the stairs and saw them. He smiled. Then grinned. And then collapsed, laughing silently and clutching his stomach. But he had to stop when he found himself completely stuck in Gaara's _Sabaku Kyu_.

'_Hah!_' 'Inner' Gaara crowed in the back of his head. '_Try and laugh now!_' (1)

"I'm wasting enough time sitting here," Gaara said crossly (2). He tugged on his arm in vain, but after a few minutes of pulling and twisting and being subject to the most terrifying mental torture ever (getting cuddled by a 'good' friend's/Naruto's friend (Sakura) who he had nearly killed a while back while that friend's friend (Sakura) was sleeping and could perhaps wake up to find herself horrified), he finally got away

"Great," Naruto said cheerfully. "Now that you're free can you let me go?" he asked. Naruto was still stuck in a sand coffin that fit him very snugly. Gaara glared at his friend and released him. Naruto fell onto the floor on his butt and looked up in fear as Gaara walked up to him. He covered his head, expecting him to hit him like Sakura did, but instead he felt Gaara grab him by the back of the shirt and pull him upstairs as Sakura rolled over onto the other side of the couch, grabbing a cushion to replace Gaara as her new object of cuddling (but not her object of affections, haha).

"Ah, don't kill me!" Naruto said as Gaara pulled him into Kankurou's dark, danky room.

"As amused as I am by the thought of leaving a corpse in my brother's room to see how long it'll stay there before anyone notices," Gaara said bluntly, "that's not what I brought you here for. There is something I want you to do."

"What?"

"I need to leave. I'm going on a four day trip. Five at most, three if things go particularly well. You could say I'm assigning myself a secret mission, since that's how your mind works. You'll cover for me using a Kage Bunshin and a Henge. If you do this correctly, I'll...I'll (um...) let you live," he finished lamely. He sighed to himself. For some odd reason, he hadn't been in a killing mood, an angry mood, or a question-me-and-die mood...

"This...is your first time asking a favor, isn't it...?" Naruto said to Gaara, scratching his head.

"...Yes. It is."

"Okay," Naruto said, "well here is how you negotiate instead of doing what you do, when you give people death threats but everyone knows that the most you'll ever do to them is strangle them with sand and let them live: You give me all-I-can-eat ramen for two whole days, and I keep people from knowing that you're not here, right?"

"Fine," Gaara said. And he left. Naruto grinned. He never said it was a Kage Bunshin that was going to take his place either.

* * *

(Next morning)

The bags under Kurogane's eyes remained unseen, covered by the Henge that he had used to become the kazekage. Everything was all fine the night before, when Naruto told him that he didn't have to hide and pretend he was Vikki anymore. Kurogane was only too glad to take his place as long as it meant he didn't have to walked around with his head near the ground. Of course, he wasn't too glad when, hours later, he realized that he couldn't be seen sleeping.

He rearranged his jacket and yawned. Coffee. That's what he needed. Coffee. Something to wake him up. Wait, no, no time. According to a small notebook Naruto gave him from Gaara, there was some sort of meeting at noon, which just so happened to be in fifteen minutes. He changed his clothes, horrified to find that it actually fit him. He was taller than Madoka, but this guy was younger than him! In two years, the kazekage would probably get taller than him. Just another person who would outgrow him as well. He felt sad...

Kurogane left. When he walked, he tended to end up staggering towards the right.

"Hey, Gaarakichi!" some random girl cried, jumping on his arm. What the hell? He nearly fell over from the unexpected weight on his arm.

"Get off of me," he said. Who was she again? She looked like Gaara. Only the darkness around her eyes were drawn on and she wore turquoise eye shadow. Kind of creepy.

From beyond this strange girl's shoulder, he and Naruto's eyes met. Kurogane tried to send Naruto a mental message and hoped it got through. 'Help!'

Naruto grinned and came running over. "Hey, _Gaara_. Hi _Mikoto_," he said, emphasizing their names. Come on, I'm fighting some girl named Mai first! Come on, you two!" Naruto pulled them behind him as he ran over.

Mikoto. That was the girl Naruto mentioned the night before. The younger sister of some Makoto twins. Makoto Mikoto. Whoever named that child was a horrible person. Naruto left them on the sidelines while he left somewhere else, probably to go and start his fight. Kurogane yawned again.

"Are you okay, Gaara?" Mikoto asked him, looking at him strangely with sudden fear in her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm just a bit tired. That insomnia thing, right?" Kurogane said, rubbing his eyes. Mikoto had gotten very pale, as did many other people around him. Oh yeah. The 'demon-comes-out-in-Gaara's-sleep' thing. "Eh, I'm fine though," he said. "Not any more tired than usual."

Mikoto smiled. "Don't worry, Gaarakichi, even if you turn into a crazy demon and I run away screaming, I'll still love you!" she said, hugging him.

"Uh...okay."

"Gaara!" Tsunade said. He'd recognize those infamous breasts anywhere. No one else would wear an outfit like that in public. "You're supposed to be here with us. The _non-genin elites_."

"Hn. Yeah," Kurogane muttered, leaving the crowd. He felt a bit embarrassed, but who cares? He wasn't really Gaara anyway. He was humiliating someone else. "Right."

Something happened. Tsunade got really loud next to him. Naruto beat some poor girl senseless after she gave him some small electric jolt. Poor girl. She's out of the tournament. At least Naruto was taking his instructions correctly. Use impressive moves and make it look like he's having an easy time. Kurogane closed his eyes. Moments later, someone nudged his side. He jerked and sat up to find Tsunade's pink-haired apprentice discreetly pointing at the field.

"He won," Sakura said. "And people are staring at you."

"I wasn't sleeping," Kurogane said crossly to the others, who were staring at him.

"Well we know that," Jiraiya said. "If you _did_ go to sleep, all hell would break loose. In the middle of the desert, no less."

Nest...Furoshiki Houtai, who Naruto described from another's description as a 'shoo-in' for the tournament, fighting against some girl from the Grass. Something Mina. It was a relatively quick fight. He kept on throwing ribbons at the girl until he only had two long strips left, although most of it was underground in the sand. All of a sudden, dozens of these ribbons came out of the ground, where he had left them. He had tossed the strips all around, even though he couldn't use the strips if he didn't have any contact with him, he used the longer ones to create a connection and use them, even if it wasn't skin contact. (hm...is that confusing? Basically, his bandages were all over the place, but he made it all touch each other. Like when Ino cut her hair and all the strands connected and she caught a Sakura. All the bandages connected and he could still control them). The guy wasn't insane or cruel, but he wasn't nice either. Kind of cold, actually, as he hung the girl. She was suspended in midair for a bit until he saw some girl with a some sort of turban braided into her hair frown at him from in the crowd.

Once the Mina girl stopped struggling, he put her down, where Sakura ran from the field with several other medic-nins and healed her. She was alive, she was fine. Good for her. The next fight was between a girl named Mineko Aizesu and Husani Gahiji. Husani. He knew that name. Some guy's kid. Yeah. The girl seemed to have techniques similar to the Inuzukas'.

He stared straight ahead, thinking. He didn't really have time to be here. Madoka was still with 'Vuldemoret'. He needed to find out everything that he could about this guy. He must have had some important affiliation with Orochimaru, for that snake bastard to give her to him. Orochimaru was moving again, and he wasn't even telling Kurogane. If there was some way he could 'win back Orochimaru's favor', then he should try to do it. He needed more information. The only information he had recieved about the demons was the identity of four, and two were rather famous, being Sabaku Gaara, the newest and youngest kage in existence, if not history, and the boy Uzumaki Naruto, who was actually famous for 'setting Gaara straight' (although Naruto was quite oblivious to this) and the Great Naruto Bridge (although it was hard for Kurogane to believe, Naruto was also completely oblivious to this). The other two were already dead and too late to save. But there were still other demons to find.

((Crap...you know when I start rambling like that, I'm running out of interesting things to happen... T-T))

"Hey, Gaara!" Naruto said to Kurogane, taking a seat next to him. "Did you see the way I nailed that girl? Too easy!"

"You let your guard down and she zapped you," Kurogane said bluntly.

"Aw, I'm huuuurt," Naruto moaned. Sakura grinned.

Kurogane ignored Naruto. Almost an hour passed by and they were still fighting. Kurogane scowled. "It's two o'clock and they're still fighting," he said angrily. "I really hope that one of them would hurry up and lose!"

"Well, it's pretty interesting," Naruto said.

"They either really suck or are really good," Kurogane said, shaking his head. Naruto leaned over next to Kurogane.

"Hey, are you _sure_ you're not Gaara?" he whispered.

"Oh, shut up," he said. The girl was good. She had the most basic skills of a shinobi and used everything to her advantage. She was quick, and she could set traps. The boy could probably see the traps, but he was never able to dodge them. Both were quick. Gahiji was just as fast as her, but not as sharp. He had speed, but he didn't have insight, predicting where the opponent would move next. Instead, he used instinct. Sometimes it worked to his advantage, sometimes it didn't.

The girl became more like a feline, with blue eyes. Didn't match her appearance. Probably some sort of ninja technique. Things were getting interesting now. The boy had a straight pole, but, for some reason, it didn't _seem_ like one. He didn't see, but he listened. He 'saw' that the pole was not just a normal pole. The boy was using genjutsu to make it appear straight. It was slightly curved with a hook on the end. A _hequ_ staff, if he wasn't mistaken. Only it was made of some heavy metal. Apparently, Gahiji wasn't just fast. He definitely wasn't weak either.

Kurogane sighed. This was really taking too long. He was really tempted to send out a small wave to daze them. Maybe enough so one can beat the other. Naruto poked him.

"It seems like it's almost over," Naruto said as the girl's feet were swept out from underneath her. He was about to his her forehead with the hooked end of his staff, but she was replaced by a cat.

"...?" Gahiji immediately reacted to his mistake, but his pole was too heavy to turn around. Instead, as the cat-girl Aizesu jumped back from behind with him with her nekote (3), so pushed the pole under his arm and hit her stomach as she slashed at him.

"This is getting a bit violent for a normal chuunin exam," Kurogane said. And long. Really long. I mean, normal ones, even in the preliminaries, rarely lasted more than ten minutes.

"As violent as when you crushed Lee's arm?" Sakura asked. "They're always violent."

"But not this long," Kurogane said.

"That's true," Tsunade said. The medic-nins had been ready to step in for ages now. Now that both fighters were exhausted, it wasn't going to take too long for them to either win or pass out. They said something.

Kurogane focused the chakra in his ears.

"...remember this when you're chuunin...I let you win," Gahiji said as he passed out. Ugh, the dramatics. How clichéd.

"Not true, liar..." Aizesu replied. "You bastard." And she fell too. It seemed that every exam had a tie. Which really complicated things. Unless both competitors lost in the next battle, the last for the day, there would be three genins left. One odd person. Which totally threw everything off. The next battle was between a girl named Ikko and another named Kaorin. Ikko from the Hidden Rock village and Kaorin from the Hidden Waterfalls.

"That bitch..." a voice said. Kurogane jumped. It was that Mikoto girl again. When did she get here? _How_ did she get here? "I hope that Kaorin girl beats her good."

"...?" Kurogane looked at Mikoto in confusion. Did they know each other?

"_I know_," Naruto said loudly. "_I mean, blowing you up in the exam like that? That was overkill!_"

Ooooooh. Okay. He had heard that explosion two days ago from the other side of the village.

The fight began with the Ikko girl running around, scattering large black spheres all over the field. One of the jounins, a blond woman with a tomboy-ish look, leaned forward with interest.

"I see..." she said.

"See what, 'Riku?" Mikoto asked.

"The secret to this kid's techniques. Not an explosion tag. They use black dust like mine, but a bit more complicated. Excessive features. I can do better..." The girl took out several sheets of paper and began writing out strange calculations."

The Kaorin girl, who was remarkably similar to a boy, stood there motionlessly and watched while the Stone girl scattered the black spheres. Was she stupid or just excessively confident? As the Ikko girl was finishing her preparations, the Kaorin girl started hers. From this distance, Kurogane couldn't see what animal hand signs she used, but he knew that it wasn't just any basic jutsu from the length of the series of handsigns.

Ikko took out a smoke bomb and one last black sphere. The arena was covered in thick smog, and no one was left able to see. With the exception of Kurogane, who switched from using his eyes to his ears. Ikko was gone, presumably high in the air of deep underground. In her place was the one bomb. All of a sudden, it began to rain. No, it poured. The sky was still clear, aside from the one large cloud hovering over the entire field. It wasn't any normal rain. It wasn't little droplets. They weren't even buckets or cats and dogs. It was like someone had dropped an ocean on top of the arena.

Meanwhile, Kaorin, who was standing at the edge of the arena completely dry, continued to let it pour. The black spheres were now broken, with black dust mixing into the sand, unable to ever be used again. The falling water fell harder and harder, creating a huge crater in the sand until you could see a figure crouched in the bottommost layer of it.

"This fight is over," Kurogane said. It was very quick. "Kaitei Kaorin wins."

"Yeeeeeesss!" Mikoto cried, jumping up and down.

"All that water..." Naruto muttered.

"I guess that would be hard to dodge, wouldn't it?" Kurogane asked Naruto. "Well then, I suppose you had better learn counter that."

"How can it be countered?" he asked Kurogane.

Figure it out yourself," Kurogane replied with a grin. "I'm the kazekage now. I can't give you hints."

'_Damn you, bat-man wannabe..._'

* * *

Kurogane had been dragged to a meeting with the Hokage to figure out a way to solve the problem with three competitors in the tournament left. Mikoto had dragged Naruto and the rest of her team to meet Kaorin.

"HI YOU!" Mikoto said, jumping up and down to the girl.

"Uh...hi?" she said, turning around.

"That was awesome how you kicked that girl's ass!" she said excitedly.

"Thanks, although I kinda feel guilty about it."

"Don't worry, she was practically a man anyway," Mikoto said. "Even if you did beat her, no one would have blamed you if you 'accidentally' killed her either." (hint-hint)

"Um...okay," Kaorin said.

"Hey, who'd you suppose is fighting who next?" Naruto asked. "I mean, there are three of us left, so is it going to be two matches for one person? Because that seems unfair. And you and Houtai and me all fighting at once... that'd be interesting."

"Oh yeah, you won, right?" the girl said to Naruto. "You look strong, but it doesn't like you really did much when you fought..."

"...Thanks?"

"Let's all train together!" Mikoto said enthusiastically.

"Alright!" Naruto said.

"Alright!" Kaorin said (at the same time...).

"No."

"No?" everyone repeated, looking at Houtai.

"If we 'train' together, then we'll be showing each other our moves," he said, "putting us at a disadvantage with each other. _I_ have no problem when it comes to creativity. With my techniques, I can be more adaptable. You guys, whoever, had only a limited number of moves, according to what I've seen so far. You, Naruto, can only fight using the strangest of techniques and basic shinobi attacks. It seems to be all you have at your disposal, and in a fight, I doubt that I would succumb to whatever trickery you pull out of your sleeves, including your little 'oiroke no jutsu'. After exposure to Gahiji, I doubt anything you dish out would be too harmful. And you, Kaorin, have only used large-scale water attacks. Very dangerous, but you have no chakra left. In the first round, you quickly got rid of your opponent in one move. You did the same to the second as well. If you missed one of us after your first and only attack, then you'd have too little energy to defend yourself and you'd be left completely open. You two lack control over your chakra. Naruto covers it with basic taijutsu. Kaorin hides it by using one large-scale attack and destroying the entire field, along with the enemy, and hopes for the best."

Ouch.

"Well," Mikoto said, "it looks like 'Ra-kun hit the nail right on the head! Fine, fine, no training. Let's just relax and have fun!"

"_Or_," Houtai said, "You could visit your _two_ friends who are bleeding half-to-death in the makeshift hospital."

"Oh yeah...well, they'll live."

"Come on," Houtai said. "Now."

"Control freak," Kaorin muttered under her breath.

* * *

"Ow ow ow ow OW!" Gahiji said. "AAAAHHHHH!"

"...?" Everyone outside of the room exchangedglances.They opened the door to find Sakura pinching his ear and trying to bandage him at the same time.

"Sit still or I'll beat the hell out of you!" Sakura threatened.

"This is hospital patient abuse! You're tying it too tight!" Gahiji whined, trying to get away, and shouting louder, much to his neighbor's chagrin. The girl in the next bed threw a poisonous glare at him.

"Shut up!" Aizesu growled, in bed next to him. "She ties it tight because you're fat!"

"I'm not fat!"

"Yeah you are!"

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

"SHUT UP BOTH OF YOU!" Sakura said, throwing Gahiji at Aizesu.

"Ooow..." they moaned.

"...Wow," Kaorin said. She's strong...

Moments later, Gahiji all bandaged up with the help of Houtai ('aaaah, EVERYBODY's trying to kill me!'), Sakura had finished up bandaging all of the injured genins in the room. Including Ikko, whom Mikoto kept on throwing glares at.

"Damn you, Aizesu..." Gahiji muttered, once he had realized that neither of them had actually won. "I lost for nothing?-!"

"If you wanted to lose for me so I could win, then maybe you shouldn't have lasted so long!" she replied. "Fights only last for, like, ten minutes, and instead, you drag it out for almost two hours! All of a sudden, you collapse out of nowhere and expect me to win, only I pass out from too little oxygen to my brain!"

"It's not _my_ fault," Gahiji said. "I fought until I couldn't move anymore. I wasn't _planning_ on throwing away the match until I realized I wouldn't win."

"Oh? And when was that?"

"When I collapsed."

"Idiot!" she said scathingly.

"Yay, now we can be all a team of genins for a whole 'nother half a year!" Mikoto said enthusiastically, jumping up and waving her arms in the air. Everyone stared at her. "What? I'm not funny enough? Come on, people, get a sense of humor, and at least _pretend_ to laugh. Honestly, work with me here. Houtai, you are our last hope, so don't lose!"

"Of course I won't. Once I become a chuunin, I'll make a request to get away from this team," Houtai said.

"Ooh, that's cold," Kaorin said. "Though I kinda agree. You guys are crazy."

"I think I'm going to cry," Gahiji said, grabbing Kaorin's hand. "Hug me!"

"Hey! Stop that or I'll—" She poked his eyes.

"Aaaaaaah! My eyes! My eyes! Aaaaaaaaaah!" He clutched his face. It was ALWAYS the face!

"Oh, I'm Husani Gahiji, by the way," he said, once he recovered. "Who are you again?"

"...Kaitei Kaorin."

"You flirt with people and _then_ introduce yourself?" Naruto asked him.

"That's his style..." Aizesu said. "Flirt now, ask questions later. _Stop_ groping her, pervert," she said in a threatening voice.

"Jealous, Ai? I knew you couldn't resist me and my charms." (Bishounen no Jutsu! sparkle sparkle!)

"You and that stupid technique again!" Aizesu muttered, tossing a pillow onto his face.

"Ooh." He kept her pillow and put it on top of his own and laid back on it. "The higher the better for the Great Gahiji-sama!"

"Ugh...just what he needs, another ego bringer-upper," Mikoto said, shaking her head sadly.

"He'll never grow up," Houtai said.

"Yeah, so what's up with Gaara?" Mikoto said.

(Gahiji: "Why are you changing the subject?-! Talk about ME...")

(Aizesu: "No.")

"What do you mean?" Kaorin asked.

"Gaara doesn't sleep!" Mikoto said.

"Really?" the Waterfall shinobi said. "Wow, like, _ever_?"

"Nope. Never slept," she said. "And now he looks all tired."

"Well maybe that's because he doesn't sleep," Kaorin said logically.

"Nah, that can't be it. There's just something a little bit...different about Gaara..." ((...yeah it sooo totally can. it isn't. but it still can.))

* * *

(1) I am seriously considering getting an Inner Gaara. I mean, Sakura's Inner Sakura is gone now. It's like they 'merged' or something. Or the inner person disease thing was just passed on to Gaara. It fits him better, because now he's just trying to stop being all bloodthirsty and evil. Inner Gaara is bloodthirsty and evil and (outer) Gaara is just Gaara! Only, I suppose Inner Gaara would be Shukaku...  
(2) In reference to Chapter 12, where Gaara says "I am wasting enough time here." And Yoshiko translates it into: "I am embarrassed and wish to leave immediately before anyone sees me blush or do something irreparable to my badass reputation as the mean, not-so-old Kazekage-sama'. Apparently, her translations are very accurate.  
(3) A nekote is like a claw worn on a shinobi's fingertips. Aizesu uses these, and extends her chakra with them. Think lightsaber. Or some kind of extending weapon or something. Only it doesn't cut like that. It cuts, but it's solid.

* * *

**My Thinking Corner**

This is the shortest chapter I have ever written. It's fifteen pages, not including this thing. I'm like... damn. I'm running low on steam and ideas. The next chapter is the last chapter in Sunagakure with the chuunin exams, so there! Almost done! YEEEEEES! I'm sorry about the short and crappy fight scenes. 1) that's not my forte, and 2) I'm lacking ideas and techniques. I promise that I will finish this ASAP, ending it with at least a better fight scene in the next chapter. But uh...yeah. And as soon as I get two more chapters out, I'm going on a small hiatus to rewrite parts that I messed up in past chapters. Especially chapter eleven. And then I might add more to this one if I ever get my inspiration back... Yeah.

Oh, and Gaara and Kankurou don't really mind Shikamaru alone, but they've got a severe case of what I call an Overprotective Brother syndrome. Anyway, I was just writing last night in my notebook (I write down scenes and silly/random comments and quotes in my notebook, often as back-up in case I fall ill to writer's block, and I was stuck for fifteen minutes. I was like, 'WHO was the person who attacked Gaara? I mean, there's Itachi, Kisame, Dadori, Zetsu and...I'M MISSING SOMEONE! What's the guy's name who beat Gaara?-!-?-!' Fifteen minutes later, I realized my mistake... Sasori plus DEIDARA! equaled Dadori. I made up a whole new character... But Dadori sounds cool anyway, right? I hope I didn't write that anywhere in the fic...how embarrassing.

Oh, and about Madoka and Voldemort... I did that just to keep things interesting. This must be Orochimaru's revenge for something. I feel sorry for that poor ugly, snaky, monkey-baby of a dark lord...

Sine this chapter is a bit short... here's a sidestory!

* * *

Run in fear! Neji's Nightmare Comes to Life  
Warning: OOCness, but for a good reason. Sort of.

Neji was running. He needed to get away. His _life_ was in jeopardy! The enemy was right on his tail as he stumbled through the crowded hallways as the most fearsome monster in the worlds pursued him. He stumbled over his robes and tripped, exhausted after having ran at breakneck speed for almost an hour now. As he fell, he felt an uncomfortable weight on top of his back as he was suddenly pinned down to the ground.

"Nooooo!" he cried. "Nonononononononono!

"C'mon, Neji," Ino begged, pinning his arms to his back as she tied his hands to each other like an officer arresting a delinquent. "Pleeeeaaaase?"

"No! I refuse to lower myself to…to _their_ level!" He struggled in her grasp and tried to wiggle away.

"It's not that bad!" Ino said in a high-pitched voice. "All you have to do is lure Lee away from Gai so that we can get to him!"

"Lure him away from Gai? LURE him away? From GAI?"

"Yes, that is what I said."

"You…you have no idea what it takes to do something like that," Neji said haltingly. He looked pained by the thought.

"Well then," Ino said, placing her hands on her hips, "enlighten me."

"It…it's a long story."

"Don't worry. If you don't tell me, you'll be stuck here for a while," Ino said with a smile. "We've got all the time in the world." Her eyes gleamed. The evil grin on her face seemed to glow in the darkness. Neji shuddered.

"It was just last summer…" he began. "Sakura was trying to get Lee off her back, so she enlisted us and 'hired' us for a job. A mission to get her rid of Lee for one whole day…. It began well enough. Until we tried to get him away from Gai…."

By the end of his 'tragic story', Ino was almost in tears, as Neji 'cried' crocadile tears.

'_A distraction_!' Still tied up, he inched away from Ino, who was still crying, but he stopped when felt Ino grab his bound hands.

"Sorry, Neji," she said, wiping her tears, "but you'll have to sacrifice yourself one more time…."

'Nooooooo!' he wanted to cry as she dragged the Hyuga prodigy away. (dun-dun-DUUUUUN!)

* * *

Neji stood in the doorway of the Great Hall, stiffly walking forward, one rigid step at a time. At the Ravenclaw table, surrounded by guys, Tenten smiled and waved at him encouragingly. She knew what was going to happen. It was nice that she was supporting him, standing by him as he was about to do the unthinkable, but did she _have_ to sit surrounded by all those Ravenclaw guys with them staring at her like that?

Someone in the Great Hall coughed. Ino tilted her head and nodded it in the direction of Lee, who was doing the cool guy pose.

Neji took a deep breath and put on a big grin on his face.

"Leeee...!" he said, running up to the Griffindor table.

"...Neji?" Lee looked slightly surprised.

"I just wanted to tell you that over the years of working for you..." Uh, what to say, what to say...? "That I have come to look upon you as a...a brother!"

Lee's eyes sparkled. "Really?"

"Really!" Neji stabbed at himself inside and gave Lee a huge grin and a thumbs up sign. He flashed Lee. With his teeth.

Once Lee recovered from his temporary blindness, his eyes got even waterier and hugged Neji. "Oh Neji!" he said, squeezing him tight. Neji was shocked.

Oh crap. Thick-brows was crying and hugging him. In the middle of dinner at the Great Hall. Neji struggled to get out of Lee's attack. Too... tight! Gaaaah!

Ino and the other shinobi conspirers were cracking up. While Lee was _still_ hugging Neji, he gave them a glare and the veins of the Byakugan strengthened it, shutting most of them up.

"I'm—I'm so happy!" Lee sobbed.

"Great now get off of me," Neji growled angrily. Lee gave him a strange look. "I—I mean, let us train together so we can become youthful geniuses of...of Kono...of Hog...of the worlds!"

"Yes!" Lee said. He ran out of the Great Hall on his hands. "We will run around the quidditch pitch 500 times on our hands! Ready, steady, GO!" And Lee ran out of the Great Hall. On his hands. People looked back at Neji. He glared at Ino and her friends poisonously before running after Lee. All shinobi in the Great Hall exchanged glances and began to disperse, slowly following after them.

Something was amiss.

* * *

Neji and Lee were now fighting on the quidditch pitch. Neji had already gotten wrapped up in bandages and thrown dozens of times into the sand, and his patience was slowly coming to an end. The other shinobi were taking their time, clearly enjoying the sight of Neji hardly trying to defend himself against a kid in a bowlcut with his eyeballs aflame. Neji had humiliated himself in front of Hogwarts. He had nothing left to live for. T-T

Neji scoped the area with his Byakugan and saw Ino give him the signal. He used the Heavenly Spin with Lee standing right in front of him and sent the boy flying to the side of the quidditch pitch, where Ino and several others lay in wait.

"Huh? Ino? What are you—?"

Ino took over his body.

"I've got you now, my soon-to-be pretty..." she cackled, in Lee's body. "Alright people! Stage one is complete! Sasuke, can you get my body please?"

Sasuke picked up Ino's body.

"Ew, these tights have _got _to go," she said, waddling funny. "Eeew, I've got something between my legs."

"..." Sasuke and Neji chose not to say anything. This was already awkward enough.

* * *

**Last Note to Readers: **

Hehehe, the nightmare's not over yet... This is just an introduction to what's going to happen later. Actually, this is ahead of time. I ran out of steam again. This takes place the day before Naruto returns to Hogwarts, but that day comes in the next chapter, which may end up taking a little longer since there will be a few...things happening then. Anyway, this chapter was extra short and I apologize for that. Anyway, I'm going to start working on the LAST CHUUNIN CHAPTER! Finally. This is taking too long for me. Sorry about that chapter, but I really want to hurry up and get back to Hogwarts.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15: An _Somewhat_ Unexpected Battle

((Note to readers: I accept constructive criticism, but not pointless 'you/this suck(s)' comments that serve no other purpose than to make just meaningless comments for the heck of it.))

* * *

It was already early in the morning for Kurogane. There was one last fight scheduled for the day in one hour, and he was currently standing in the hallway, leaning on the wall with his arms crossed and eyes closed. He still had the frown on the face, but...he was sleeping.

"Aaw, he looks so cute!" someone giggled. He twitched. ...Cute? "...I've gotta get a camer— wait...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Kurogane jumped when he heard a girl screaming and fell backward. Sometimes, good hearing was a bad thing. He looked at the girl on the floor. She bore a remarkable resemblance to Mariku, only prettier. But she gave off a weird aura and had bags under her eyes.

"What are you screaming about?-!" Kurogane shouted.

"You were sleeping!" she cried. "Oh my god, we're gonna die! I don't wanna die yeeeet!"

"I wasn't sleeping!" he said. "...I was _meditating_."

"Meditating... On your feet in the middle of the hallway?"

"Opposed to sleeping on my feet in the middle of the hallway?"

"...Hm... I guess you've got a point there."

"What do you want?" he asked the girl. She held up a scroll.

"I have finished my masterpieces!" she said proudly. "Give it to Kankurou for me?"

"...Fine," Kurogane said. ...Who the hell was Kankurou?

"Oh, hey, Gaara?"

"What do you want?"

"Um, where's your gourd?"

"Why would I need it?" Kurogane said. "One giant gourd of sand isn't going to help me _that_ much. If you hadn't noticed, we're in the desert."

The girl gave Kurogane a long, hard look and shrugged, turning around to leave. Wait a minute... He realized what was so strange about this person.

"You're a guy," Kurogane said bluntly.

"Oh, you already knew that...Gaara-sama," the _boy_ said. "I should go now. Sleep." He knew that there was something different. 'One giant gourd of sand isn't going to help that much?' Something wasn't right with Gaara.

* * *

It was around four when Naruto arrived at the training area with Houtai and Kaorin there as well. He looked at Kurogane/Gaara in the crowd and grinned. Kurogane was half-dead on his feet, and the people around him were freaking out. It was funny. Except for Kurogane, who was constantly hurting himself just to keep himself awake. And the people around him, who were frightened by the thought of Gaara falling asleep. And everyone else who didn't realize that this was not the Kazekage and feared for their lives. Basically, it seemed that Naruto was the only one who found this funny.

"...And remember," Shikamaru said to the three of them before the tournament started. "There aren't really any rules, aside from 'don't miss and hit the audience'."

Kaorin winced.

"Oh, and try to keep it entertaining. The audience likes the entertainment. The more impressive you look, the better off you'll be, since you're pretty much advertising your home village."

"Right!" Naruto said with a grin. Shikamaru frowned.

"Oh yeah, a bit of extra advice: It's not all about the attacks or the strength either," he said.

"I know," Naruto said, remembering how Shikamaru had lost so easily but was the only one to become a chuunin anyway. How unfair...

Since Kurogane/Gaara was busy doing his best just to stay awake, sitting with his head held up by his hand. Some were concerned, some where leaving so they can prepare themselves and pack so when 'Gaara' goes to sleep, they'll be miles away, screaming their heads off.

Naruto went to the other side of the training grounds. Arrangements had been made, and several training arenas had been combined into one. It was just one large empty area. Apparently, the wide scale attacks that Kaitei Kaorin had used were taken seriously, as they were all given their distances.

"Start!" Temari shouted from the sidelines. Almost immediately Naruto went on the move. He was running towards Kaorin, expecting to see her casting her strange jutsus, only to find that she wasn't doing anything extraordinary at all. That wasn't what he expected. And apparently, Houtai didn't expect it either. He was completely swathed in his bandages from head to toe, and even his head was completely covered up, except for his eyes, his mouth, and his nose.

It was confusing. Who to go for first? It seemed that Kaorin was the bigger threat, so Houtai was immediately going to take her out. If he attacked Kaorin, it would be two-on-one and feel really unfair. If he beat Houtai, then he'd be at risk of getting hit by one of those water blasts in the meantime.

_Kage Bunshin no Jutsu_! Naruto made many copies of himself and they all began running towards both of the enemy shinobi.

"An illusion," Houtai muttered, mistaking Naruto's technique for an ordinary bunshin. Until he saw the shadow beneath the copies. ((Do normal bunshins not have shadows?))

The bandages on his arm unraveled in seconds and all of the kage bunshins were speared through by bandages. All of them disappeared in midleap, but they each did their part as they threw an explosion tag kunai at Houtai and Kaorin. Houtai flinched at the force and Kaorin was pushed to the side by the force of it.

Naruto, who had been watching from a bit further, looked away from the blast and covered his face. The explosion was large enough to cover most of the field in a thick smog.

"That's your problem..." a voice in the smoke said, uncomfortably close to him. Houtai. "You depend on weapons and explosion tags to attack and shadow doppelgangers to distract the enemy. It's painfully...basic. And the doppelgangers disappear the moment they receive a mere papercut. Too weak."

Naruto jumped, having heard the voice behind him. If he couldn't see, the enemy probably couldn't either, but who knows? Maybe he had mastered a doujutsu. It didn't matter for Naruto. He had no such Byakugan or special bloodline limit senses. Kurogane often use Koumori's chakra to strengthen his hearing. Kiba used his chakra to strengthen his smell. Madoka extended her chakra to create webs. Just proof that there were other ways of Seeing.

Naruto used the Kyubi's chakra to strengthen all his senses. He didn't need his eyes alone. Though he smelled smoke, he recognized to scents that weren't sand. He could smell the enemy, he could smell the spectators. He could hear someone breathing as quietly as possible. One person was slowly moving towards him from the left, the other was on the other side of the field. Kaorin, where she landed near the side... he felt a large mass of chakra starting to gather to the side of the field where Kaorin just stood up. He could taste a slightly metallic taste in his mouth, sensing danger.

Naruto knew what was coming. _Shunshin no jutsu_! The smoke covered his arrival as Naruto disappeared for a split second and reappeared near Kaorin, who was completely oblivious to his presence, focusing everything she had to her hand signs. He would let her finish off Houtai, who was still in the smoke, first. It would be easier to finish her off alone. But...there were two of him. Did he know how to use the Taju Kage Bunshin?

Before Naruto could react, the sky fell.

When he had seen Kaorin use the Water Fall technique from the sidelines, it looked impressive from far away. Now, just three feet away from the sudden downpour, it was almost godly. Not divine, but powerful. There was no doubt that he would have been crushed if he was caught beneath the torrent from the skies. Yet somehow, it wasn't as strong as the first time he had seen it.

"You!" Naruto said. Kaorin turned around and stared at Naruto. She stared back at the field, where the water stopped as immediately as it began, revealing only one figure in the water that was slowly sinking into the sand.

"...What...are you doing...not under there...?" she panted angrily, pale with the mass amount of chakra she had just used.

"Not getting crushed," another that wasn't Naruto's voice said. What the hell?

Naruto spun around to see Houtai standing behind him with his arms crossed. His face was no longer covered in bandages. The only ones he had left were the ones on his arms. The ones that suddenly wrapped around him.

"Fck!" Naruto tried to swear when he was completely covered. What was this strange feeling? It was as if the energy was being drained from him. From the tiny slit over his eyes, he could see another bandage attach itself to the figure crouched in the sand. The one they thought was Houtai... was just an empty shell made of bandages, attached to Houtai by a bandage keep its form. Naruto struggled weakly but couldn't get escape. His chakra was being drained from him. Naruto closed his eyes. He was without his own chakra, but he was not defeated yet. It had taken just seconds for Naruto to become almost completely drained. Now unable to move, Houtai released him. Naruto was on the ground, as Houtai headed for Kaorin, who prepared to force herself to run.

Naruto smirked. He was out of his own chakra, but not out of chakra that he could use. As soon as Houtai turned his back on him, he made dozens of Kage Bunshins.

"...!" Houtai heard the 'poof' and sensed other presences on the field and turned around to find roughly thirty copies of Naruto grinning at him.

"You should not have any chakra," he muttered.

"I can store it in other places. Who says that I kept it inside of _myself_?" Naruto asked him. He barely had to use the Kyuubi's chakra. Naruto had kept his chakra 'hidden' in his body, used only as last reserves for cases like these. He rarely had to resort to them, except when he was sparring with Jiraiya. So he had 'unlocked' the gate to his other chakra, and was ready to use them. Houtai couldn't tell which was the real one as exactly half of the Naruto's used a Henge and became large shurikens. Okay, that meant that the real Naruto was probably one of the ones throwing the shuriken, which meant it was one of the fifteen.

They all threw the shuriken, although Houtai (and Kaorin, who was standing near him creeping as far away from him as possible) dodged them. The shuriken landed uselessly in the sand behind them. Kurogane proceeded to releasing the bandages on his arms to shoot them out at the remaining Narutos. All of them turned to clouds of smoke, save for one who fell to the ground clutching a bloody stomach where the bandage pierced through him. Houtai turned back to Kaorin who was slowly backing away in fear. He used the bandages on his arm to extend and make contact with the ones on the field. The one that was empty and had molded to form the shape of Houtai's body like a doppelganger of bandages.

When his bandages touched the empty 'shell' version of him, the shell immediately unravelled and returned to him, but much slower than before. Despite his disadvantageous position on the ground, Naruto noticed this and grinned.

It would be easier if he just got rid of Houtai first. The Kaorin girl hardly had any chakra left, so it would be easy enough to finish her off. Houtai was the bigger threat.

The injured Naruto staggered back onto his feet.

"Hey, don't count me out just yet!" he said eagerly, running at them and bleeding at the same time.

"...You're going to bleed to death," Houtai warned.

"I'm not dead yeeet!" Naruto said in a singsong voice, as he attempted to land a kick on him.

"I'll put you down fast then," Houtai said. Bandages shot out at Naruto and entangled him, completely enveloping him in the bandages. The bandages squeezed tighter and tighter until...Naruto disappeared, and in his place were dozens of smoke bombs that went off in Houtai's face. Irritated, he fanned it away with his bandages. A kage bunshin carrying smoke bombs? It was strange that the shadow doppelganger was able to sustain such damages before disappearing. It normally took a mere punch to make it disappear in smoke. Naruto's had lasted through getting speared through the stomach and squeezed 'to death'. So where was the real Naruto? He had hidden himself among the shuriken he threw!

"...!" Houtai turned around, although it was useless, being unable to see in the smoke. Naruto's shuriken were probably gone by then. He sensed something coming at him in the smoke and moved into a defensive position as three large objects hit him and became smoke. And he was continued to be pelted by these shadow doppelgangers. Naruto tossing a kage bunshin at him for no reason? Odd.

Little did Houtai know it was a part of Naruto's ingenious plan!

The bandages Houtai wore were uncomfortably warm, even for the desert climate. In fact, they were supposed to be cool after being soaked in water. So why...?

Naruto sighed as Houtai immediately began to tear the bandages off his skin and toss them away to the side as several kage bunshins, disguised as bandages, with their several explosion tags, disappeared at the moment of the explosion.

"Wow," Naruto said thoughtfully, far from the explosion. "Didn't expect it to be _that_ big..."

The explosion tag had blown away most of the smoke, revealing Houtai and Kaorin on the ground. Houtai glared at Naruto, who grinned cheekily back.

"Oh, can't stand a joke?" Naruto asked him with a grin.

"Mikoto singed some of mine," he said irritably. "You have just completely disintegrated half of my whole stash in this battle."

"...Sorry? I'll buy you some new bandages once I'm—aaaaaaaah!" Houtai had finally lost it. "My god, he's gonna kill meeee!"

Naruto ran away from Houtai, who was coming up fast from behind. He would jump up and down and dodge to the left and the right to avoid getting skewered by the remains of Houtai's bandages.

Sakura groaned. "Naruto, you idiot, fight back!" she shouted. "You're not _that _pathetic!"

"He doesn't have to stop running if he doesn't want to," Temari, who was sitting next to her, said. "It's _funny_. And he's giving the audience a good laugh. I suppose they think he's just 'toying around' with Houtai, since it was a series of suspicious 'miracles' that brought him here." ((when I say this, I mean, they think he is purposely acting like this. Like in Rurouni Kenshin, Kenshin acts like an idiot and is constantly getting beat up. They think Naruto is a 'Kenshin', who is just disguising his 'true abilities' and stuff, even though it was all just plain luck that he's here. Well, no not really. Naruto's got mad skillz!))

"How troublesome," Shikamaru said, shaking his head. As the judge for this final battle, he had already pulled Kaorin out of the battle. Give her a soldier's pill and send her to a quick check-up in the infirmary, and she'd be fine. All she had suffered was a little case of chakra depletion. He was really tired of waiting for this battle to be over already. In fact, he had almost accidentally ended this battle when Houtai had been practically blown up, but noooo, instead of beating the opponent, he drove his opponent to the point of insanity by really pissing him off.

While running, Naruto pulled his hitai-ate over his eyes.

"What is he doing...?" Sakura wondered. "He can't run if he can't see!"

But Naruto kept on running, straight towards the crowd. People were starting to warily move out of the way, just in case Houtai missed Naruto and hit them instead. But Naruto slowed down and formed a Rasengan in his fist. He forced it into the sand, effectively causing almost all of the sand to jump up into the air, showering everyone with chunks of wet, falling sand. The hitai-ate over his eyes kept the sand from getting in his eyes.

Houtai backed away, having seen the devastation Naruto's strange attack had caused. He had second thoughts of attacking Naruto now...

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" a voice behind Houtai shouted. He heard the telltale sounds of a 'poof'. He turned around, expecting to see only a few other copies of Naruto, but instead found himself facing a small army.

"Damn," he muttered, as half of them held a strange spinning orb in their hands. "You've got a lot of chakra."

Naruto grinned. "Give up?"

"Either that or get blown to bits."

"_Finally_," Shikamaru muttered. "Kaitei Kaorin loses from chakra depletion and Furoshiki Houtai forfeits the match! Uzumaki Naruto wins the battle!" he announced to the audience, relieved this battle was finally over. As the last fight in the chuunin exam, all that was left was one troublesome meeting, discussing who passed and who failed, and then he could go back home, where it was usually less troublesome.

"YEEESS!" Naruto cried, jumping in the air, as all of the Kage Bunshins disappeared in consecutive 'poofs'. "I win, I win, I win!"

"That's sad," Houtai muttered. "I lost to an idiot younger than me with a personality as bad as Gahiji's..."

"Only one year!" Naruto said. "I'm fifteen in less than a week!"

"Almost two years, actually," he said sulkily.

"You're right," Gahiji said, running onto the field, still covered in his own bandages, "That _is_ sad, but no one really cares, because there's a party at Gaara's house. Not the office. The house."

"And Gaara actually allowed it?" Aizesu wondered.

"No, but he can't just kick us out, 'cuz he'll be kicking out almost the entire village!" Mikoto said. "Come on! The more of us there are, the harder it'll be for him to get rid of us!"

* * *

"Congratulations," Kurogane said to Naruto. 'Gaara' had retreated to the bathroom, where he was going to meet Naruto. "I need sleep."

"That's great," Naruto said. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Take my place for me," he said desperately, unlike the usual Kurogane he knew and feared. "Use a Kage Bunshin. Give my an hour. Half an hour! _Five minutes_! I can't...wait..."

"You can't wait for what?" Naruto asked.

"Shut up..." Kurogane said. All of a sudden, he turned around and pulled open the bathroom door to find Sakura leaning on it. She fell inside, and Kurogane covered her mouth as he locked the door.

"Ow!" Kurogane yanked his hand away. "You _bit_ me!"

"Where's Gaara?" Sakura growled, ignoring his question. "Who are you? And Naruto! What the hell are you doing with the enemy?"

Naruto kept her from hitting Kurogane by pulling her by the back of her shirt. "Don't kill him, he's a friend!"

"He's from the Sound!" she said, pointing an accusing finger at the metal plate poking out of his pocket. She glared at them in a threatening manner.

"Stupid thing doesn't fit right," Kurogane muttered, pushing it further inside the pocket, but the metal plate that he had removed from the cloth was too big and refused to shrink and fit inside the pocket.

"He's a friend!" Naruto repeated. "Ssh."

"What did you do with Gaara?" she asked them angrily, pulling on her gloves in a threatening manner. She was doing a lot of things in a threatening manner.

"Er...he left," Naruto said quickly. "Don't hit me!"

"You better not be lying," Sakura said with a gleam in her eye. "Chiyo-sama didn't sacrifice her life for nothing. Why did he leave?"

"He didn't say! He told me to use a Kage Bunshin to take his place for him so no one finds out he's gone! He'll be back soon!"

(Kurogane: "Scared of your own friend? You're pathetic, Naruto..." Naruto: "She's my friend, but she's a friend who could kill me with the flick of a finger...")

"When did he leave?"

"Mm, 'bout four days ago? He'll be back soon!"

"Who is this guy?"

"He's a friend I met from the Sound! He's good, I swear!"

"Of course," Kurogane muttered. "If I was bad, he'd be dead."

"No I wouldn't, _I_ beat _you_."

"It was a fluke. A mere fluke. No one as stupid as you could have possibly defeated me the way you did (1)."

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that," Naruto said.

"What, you wanna fight now?"

"Yeah, sure, why not? Then I can beat you AGAIN!"

"Oh god..." Sakura said. "You two are both idiots..."

"I'm not an idiot," Kurogane said angrily. "I was almost a genius! If I'm acting weird, it's because I haven't sleep in four...damn...days! I quit! I'm leaving, and I'm sleeping, and I'm...I'm sleeping some more!"

"Sure, duck out in the middle of a job," Naruto said, "you'll sure win Gaara that way."

"What do you mean by, 'win Gaara'?" Sakura asked.

"None of this information leave the room," Kurogane said to them both. He crossed his arms and looked away.

"He's more like Gaara than I thought possible..." Sakura said in awe. Not as cute though. _Wait_...

"Fine, fine," Naruto said, interrupting Sakura's thoughts. "Kurogane's finding as many Jinchuuriki as he could using his information system of bat spies to help form a small army and destroy the Sound."

"The _world_. My goals are bigger than just destroying the Sound. It's _tiny_. I want _the world_."

"You keep telling yourself that," Naruto said. "All you need to get rid of is the Sound."

"The world."

"The Sound."

"The world."

"Orochimaru."

"Fine."

"..." Sakura was speechless. "How come you never told us about this guy? We could use a good spy in the Sound."

"If any information gets out about my other allies, I'm as good as dead," Kurogane said. "Which is why this information is not leaving the room."

"If you're found out, you could come to Konoha and be protected there," Sakura insisted. "You and Naruto and me don't have to be the only ones to know. You'll be protected by us if you're found out. And if Konoha knows, you might get better resources. Jiraiya is also a good spy."

"Especially when spying on women," Naruto muttered.

"...I guess that's true too," Sakura admitted.

"No one can know," Kurogane said. "And if I am found out, no amount of shinobi warriors can help us."

"Us?" Sakura repeated.

"Me and my former assistant."

"Wow, promoted from servant to assistant," Naruto said. "Good for Madoka."

"She's not much of a servant. She can't do anything."

"Who's Madoka? Where is she now?"

"Madoka is somewhere, I'm not sure. Orochimaru sent her to a new 'master'. She's my former assistant. She's blind, pathetic, and a bit annoying really. I don't know what Orochimaru would want to do with her."

"Oh. What's _your_ name?"

"Just call me Kiet," Kurogane said.

"His name's Kurogane," Naruto had accidentally said at the same time. Kurogane glared at him. "Uh, oops. Didn't know you were going under assumed name..."

"Idiot."

Kurogane became Gaara again and the three left the bathroom (a suspicious sight for anyone who was sober enough to pay attention: no one) and returned to the party, where bets and debts were paid and settled. Tsunade, who had betted on Naruto, actually won a lot of money from the losers and was busy drinking and gambling her wins away with Jiraiya and other high-ranking shinobi while the underage were sneaking in Temari's alcohol cabinet in under the table while no one was watching.

"Absolute chaos," Kurogane muttered condescendingly. "Now is the worst time to have fun and get drunk."

"Why?" Naruto asked. "The exams are over and it's time to celebr—" There was a large explosion outside.

"Oh great..." Sakura muttered.

"What was that?" Naruto cried.

"The yearly Sound attack..." she replied as many of the shinobi immediately got up. They ran outside "They do this _every_ _exam_, those losers! No offense, Kurogane ("none taken"), but don't they have a life?-!It's soooo annoying! Exams are almost always taken in the Leaf, so we, direct enemies of the Sound, are most likely to get attacked, but last year, we went to the Mist instead and _they_ weren't attacked. So they don't attack the Mist, but they have the guts to attack the _Sand instead_? Well, very few people ever get hurt in these fights; it's more like some big prank or a joke, since they only fight us halfheartedly. But still...it's...sooo...ANNOYING!"

They got outside to see, in surprise, that instead of the enemy Sound shinobi, there were robed men wearing masks and...

Giants! Several people saw them and swore loudly, Kurogane included.

"What the fuck?" Kurogane muttered. "I really don't feel like fighting. Too tiresome."

"You sound like Shikamaru," Naruto commented, looking up at them. The _giants_ were really _big_. (no duh...)

"You should go inside and hide," Sakura said. "You don't want people looking at you and wondering, 'Why isn't the kazekage helping out with his sand?', do you?"

Kurogane sighed and ran inside.

"Smart," Naruto said. Also, if Kurogane was somehow seen and spotted by the enemy, his country, he'd be in danger as well. "But...what's with the giants?"

"I don't know," Sakura said, "but I'm starting to think that we're not the only country allied with wizards. Not a single Sound-nin in sight."

"This should be easy then!" Naruto said. "Kage Bunshin no jutsu!"

"Wait...Naruto!"

"Rasengan!"

Naruto hit the closest giant with a swirling ball of chakra, only for the thing to moan, rubbing its bruised stomach, and growl at Naruto, who freaked out and ran back to Sakura.

"Idiot!" Sakura said as they ran away from the angry giant. "Giants are resistant to magic and since magic and chakra have similar features, it only makes sense for it to have similar effects on giants. If you're going to attack with rasengan, stick it to the wizards!"

"Right!" Naruto said, giving Sakura a thumbs up sign. "Um...I'll leave it to you and your abnormal strength! Kick giant ass for me, Sakura!"

"Not so fast, kid," a voice said. Naruto turned around and ran into a familiar figure.

"Ow! Sorry, Maruko..." Naruto muttered, rubbing his head and helping the merchant up. The wind began to pick up as Temari, behind them, swung her fan towards the giants, cutting them, but not taking them down.

"You shinobi are all too strong for me," he muttered, rubbing his back where he fell. "I've tested out a few products, and I've got a few things you and Sakura could use." He pulled out a pair of gauntlets and a bracelet made of white stones. Naruto immediately grabbed for the gauntlets, but Maruko pulled it away from him. "No, _those_ are Sakura's."

"I don't want a bracelet..." he whined. "White doesn't match..."

"Put it on now," Maruko said. "You have time, with other shinobi fighting off the guys in dresses and the big people. Are they really giants?"

"Yes," Sakura said, taking the gauntlets.

"Either that, or they're really tall normal people," Naruto said.

"Oh, and you should take this mask as well," Maruko said, pulling a mask and a robe out. "Wear the robe over your clothes and don't punch with the gauntlets without these things. And look away when you punch as well. You'll see why later. And don't use it near an ally. You'll blow them up. They aren't protected like you."

Naruto begrudgingly slipped the bracelet onto his left arm, but Maruko sighed and put it on his right. "Your writing hand, please," he said to Naruto.

"What's this thing for?" he complained, looking disdainfully at the bracelet.

"It molds pure chakra," Maruko answered. "No one I know was able to use it yet—"

"Then why give it?-!"

"—but only Gaarakichi-sama has the mass amount of chakra to be able to use it. Him and _you_. You used the Taju Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (2), which requires a large amount of chakra. I've read about it before, and I'm not stupid. If you didn't have so much chakra, you'd be dead. Yet you've still got chakra to spare. Don't use this if you've got a Kage Bunshin out. You'll be out of chakra if you do."

"What does it do?" Naruto asked, now curious.

"Think of it like Gaara's ability to control sand. You control your chakra like his sand, but not an absolute defense, since it requires a conscious will to do so, but it'll do."

"Cool, how do I use it?"

"Uh..._Gaara_ knows..." Maruko said nervously. "...See ya!" He ran away. Maruko almost ran into an enemy wizard but tossed a ball from his sac at him. The ball turned into a large door that continued to fly at the speed that it was going at while it was still a ball. The wizard didn't have any time to utter a spell before he got hit by the door at fifty miles an hour (it's possible for a person the throw a baseball at that speed, right?). Maruko continued to run, throwing balls that changed into strange, yet somewhat dangerous objects: chairs, tables, what appeared to be a chunk of wall, plates, cups, forks, spoons, knives, sporks, and an occasionally toilet and sink.

"..." Sakura and Naruto stared at the strange man as he tossed these balls, searching for cover so he could hide.

"Damn," Naruto muttered, glaring at his new bracelet like it were the enemy. "I look girly with thisand don't even know how to use this thing..."

"Good luck, Naruto!" Sakura said, running towards a giant.

"Ergh... I'm going to need it," he muttered, looking at a wizard who spotted him at the same time.

In the words of a certain lazy chuunin exam proctor, this...was going to be a very troublesome skirmish.

* * *

Gaara was busy relishing his victory over the Kadaj traders. On a cloud of sand, he was heading back home on his cloud of sand.

_"What do you have for us to trade for the dress? It was one of Yoshiko-sama's best designs. It didn't come cheaply," the leader of the Kadaj caravan had said. _

_Gaara looked through the sand in his gourd and found it. "This book of spel_—_jutsus and this chakra-spelled wand...stick, I mean. Created by a member of the Red Sand called Makoto Maruko," Gaara said. He might as well help advertise their shop. They weren't that bad. _

_"And what does this _'wand_' do? And if you say it pulls bunnies out of your robes, I am not going to even bother negotiating with you." _

_Gaara flipped through the pages of the book. "Hm... _aguamenti!_" he said, and a violent current of water shot out of the tip of the wand. "_That_ is what it can do," Gaara said, pointing the wand at the wet sand below him as the caravan stared in amazement. _

_"Sold!" the man said. _

_'Hah...' Gaara thought as he traded the spare wand and book to the traders. 'Hope you can read Latin and English...' And he left with his—Sakura_'s_—dress. _

But now, Gaara had a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something wasn't quite right... He had the dress, and he succeeded in ripping off the traders. Was his conscience returning to him? A sense of good and a need to return to the traders and explain more to them about magic?

Nah, that wasn't it.

Gaara hurried back to his village, wondering whether he should give it to her before or after they went back to Hogwarts. Either have his killer reputation ruined at the Sand or at the school. Decisions, decisions...

But Gaara approached the village and spotted it much earlier than he was supposed to. Because there were some rather large creatures destroying the buildings. Aw shit. He leaves for just a few days and the village gets attacked. What luck. Gaara hurried towards the village. They weren't doing too bad. Not that he expected them to be in too much trouble. There were many promising genins and powerful shinobi watching this exam from all over this world. Not to mention, the Hokage Tsunade and Jiraiya, two of the Three Legendary Ninjas, were helping defend the village.

No one was risking any large summons. It would do further damage to the buildings. Mariku had used her enhancing scents, obviously. Almost as fast as Rock Lee now. Houtai and his sister were...hanging wizards like criminals, although most of them were Apparating out.

"Gaara?" Naruto said from behind him. "Or Kurogane?"

"Who's Kurogane?" Gaara asked him.

"Nevermind. Do you know how to work this thing?" Naruto asked, pointing at a white bracelet on his right hand.

"No. Where's Sakura?"

"Um...somewhere back there," he said, pointing down a street. There was an explosion. There've been a lot of those in the Sand recently. "But where've you bee—?"

Gaara ignored him and went down the street looking for a shade of pink hair but found instead Sakura with a mask similar to that of an ANBU and dark robes, wearing metal gauntlets. Everytime she hit something, it blew up and pushed her backwards. The robes seemed to be very durable. Nice, but these giants seemed to be resistant to both chakra and physical attacks. But it was nothing Gaara couldn't handle. Sakura was on the ground, struggling to get back up. Those gloves were dangerous. He gathered his chakra in the sand and began to pull down the giants like a quicksand trap. Leave the robed men to the shinobi. It would be easy enough for his people to take them down, especially with the giants out of the way. Gaara was careful not to submerge his own people and the buildings.

Sakura began to sink as well. She made a surprised sound as she was pulled underground, although Gaara was more careful to give her an actual 'bubble' of air for her to stay in. Unlike the giants, who would soon be suffocating and suffering a sandy death, he went underground too.

Under the sand, it was completely dark.

"An underground tunnel...?" he heard Sakura say in the darkness, almost right in front of him.

"It's temporary," he said. She shrieked and Gaara almost lost his composure and fell over by the sheer volume of it. "...(ow...) How on earth did you manage to blow things up like that?" he asked Sakura, rubbing his ear.

"Oh, you scared me...um, Maruko gave these things to me."

"And you actually trust that nutjob enough to _use_ it?" he asked her.

"You've got a point, but can you let me out of here? It's dark, I can't see, and I can't fight if they're up there and we're down here. Chakra doesn't work too well on these giants, so it's up to physical attacks," she said.

"Heal yourself first," Gaara said.

"It's only a few bruises that I have."

"Yes, and it's also only a few giants that we have."

"Well when you say it like that, I'm _sure_ they aren't much trouble," she said sarcastically.

Gaara paused. "_Sabaku Taiso_." (3) Sakura felt a tremor underground, as if the sand around her had suddenly become much more... compact. "If they were trouble before, they're not anymore."

"You just killed them all?"

"Well, if they survived after being crushed by about sixteen tons of sand underneath a city, then I have to say I am very disappointed in my skills. I must be rusty if they're still alive."

"Remind me never to bother you ever," Sakura said.

"I wouldn't kill you," Gaara said. He paused and frowned in the darkness, although the frown went unnoticed. "...You're a good healer. That and you've got abnormal strength like Tsunade."

"Thanks?"

The sand above them parted, and they crawled out from underground.

"You have no idea how strange that looks," Temari said. She had been standing on top of them when the sand began to move. She freaked out and nearly fell into the hole that Gaara and Sakura got out of. "I'm guessing our new giant-flavored fertilizer is your doing?"

"Who else's would it be?" Gaara retorted.

"Where's Naruto?" Sakura asked Shikamaru and Temari.

"Oh, I saw a few of him heading over there, gathering the leftover wizards," Temari said, pointing back. "A whole bunch of them made a loud sound and disappeared, but we're rounding up leftovers to interrogate."

"We sure could use Ino right now," Shikamaru muttered. Temari glared at him with fiendish eyes. "I meant for the interrogation! The interrogation! Not anything else!" he said, backing away from her. Temari shrugged and smiled.

"I believe you, Shika-kun," she said sweetly, "but remember..._if I ever catch you cheating on me, you will suffer the most painful of deaths!_"

"I know, I know..." Shikamaru muttered. "Especially when your brothers already threaten me with painful deaths if I move one toe out of line..."

"Gaara, have you been threatening Shika-kun, recently?" Temari demanded, hearing this.

Gaara glared at her boyfriend. Blabbermouth. "_No_," he lied through clenched teeth.

"Gaara..." Sakura said, sweatdropping, "you're a bad liar..."

Gaara grumbled to himself. "Let's go see to the new prisoners. I have a feeling there is going to be a long meeting after this..." He felt like he was forgetting something. He, Sakura, Temari, and Shikamaru headed for the center of the town where everyone else was as well.

"Gaara?" Naruto said. "Or Kurogane?"

"This is the second time you've asked me that, and I don't even know who this 'Kurogane' is," Gaara said irritably. There were only a handful of wizards left. Five? _Only five_?

"Oh okay," Naruto said. He and a few Kage Bunshins gathered in one spot and began talking amongst themselves. Did Naruto not realize that he was, in short, talking to himself? "Oh, and have any of you seen Vikki?"

"No," Sakura said. "Um...is that Kurogane?"

She pointed at a stranger who was struggling and kicking at his captives. He had bags under his eyes and his hands were tied behind his back, but he was dragged to the center along with the wizards.

"Oh...Kazekage-sama!" Fuji, the stranger's captive said. "We found this imposter hiding in your rooms! He was impersonating you and—?"

"...Impersonating?" Gaara repeated. He looked at Naruto, who made a face.

Gaara grabbed Naruto's shirt, and took this stranger ('Kurogane'?) from Fuji. "Excuse me for a moment," he said.

"Kazekage-sama! Be careful!" Fuji said. "He's from Sound?"

"Sound?" another voice repeated. It was Jiraiya and Tsunade. The stranger in Gaara's hands swore under his breath.

"I will speak to these two _alone_," Gaara said to all of them, pulling them away by the back of their shirts.

"Naruto, this is all your fault," the Sound nin muttered under his breath.

"No it isn't! You're the one who got caught..."

"I haven't slept in ages because of you! How do you expect me to fight back?-!"

"Naruto..." Gaara said calmly. "Tell me... WHY DID YOU BRING THIS OUTSIDER INTO MY VILLAGE?"

"Well, uh... I...don't know?"

Gaara's eye twitched, threatening to obliterate this kid. His friend... Gaara shuddered inside. He needed to rethink his choice in friends. Er...just friend. Singular.

"Um, Gaara?" a voice said behind him.

"What do you want?" he asked Sakura.

"Um...please don't be mad. Naruto told me, and I don't think this guys a bad guy. But uh... what where you doing that made you take a four-day leave?"

NARUTO TOLD? He glared at the blond who grinned sheepishly in return.

"Who is this guy?"

"Kurogane. From the Hidden Sound Village," the impersonator said.

"Okay... good. Now, Kurogane, why are you here?"

"...Not sure really. I don't really have anything to do so I came here." Gaara glared at the prisoner. "Honestly, it's the truth!"

"You know, just for the record, he copied you real good," Naruto said.

"Shut up, Naruto," Gaara and Kurogane said at the same time.

Gaara took a deep breath. "How...did you meet Naruto?"

"We fought—"

"And I won!" Naruto said proudly.

"It was a _tie_..."

"No it wasn't. I really did win!"

"Shut up..."

"Should I repeat the question or hit you?" Gaara asked.

"I know the question," Kurogane answered. "Um...met about a year ago...planning a revolt."

"Against the Sound?"

"No, a revolt against Mars, you idiot. I mean, Kazekage-sama...Um...sorry? Used to talking to Naruto."

"Fine, fine," Gaara said. "So you two fought and planned a revolt against the Sound together? You're planning on taking over the Sound?"

"No! For god's sake, why does everyone think I need that tiny-ass country? I could run across it in less than a day! Sooo small! I want the world, I tell you, the WORLD!"

"This guy...he's crazy."

"I'M NOT CRAZY I'M TIRED! THERE'S A DIFFERENCE! BECAUSE OF THAT IDIOT, I SPENT FOUR DAYS IMPERSONATING YOU WITHOUT A SINGLE NIGHT OF SLEEP!" Kurogane said.

"They told me," Sakura said. "I found out just recently. Apparently, Kurogane's gathering Jinchuuriki, both to keep them safe and create a small army."

"Okay," Gaara said. "So you knew this guy for a year and never told us? We could use a spy in the Sound right now."

"I'm not spying for anyone else but me," Kurogane said. "And I don't want anyone knowing who I am."

"Kurogane hasn't tried to kill me!" Naruto said. "Ever, except for the first time we met and when he was training me at Hog—em... when I was...not with you guys..."

"Wait...you were fighting this guy at Hogwarts..."

"Okay...yeah."

"I didn't know that," Sakura said. "Oh, that's why you were looking all beat up!"

"_Fine_," Gaara said. "I know the solution to all of this."

"Really?" the others said.

"Yes. Sakura and Naruto are not to speak of this situation ever again," Gaara said, thinking it best not to let other people wonder what was so important that he had left the Sand for four whole days. "And Kurogane is now our prisoner."

"What? I didn't do anything! I was tricked into being you! This is completely unfair! First I have to act like a smelly stinking fox and then I have to be a guy who doesn't sleep for for goddamn days and then I'm getting arrested for—DOWN!"

"Huh?" Several beams of purple light shot past them. A wall of sand covered Gaara and Sakura, who was lucky enough to be standing next to him. Kurogane threw up a chakra shield, but was just lucky that the beams missed him, as the shield did not block chakra or magical attacks. Naruto, however, was hit square in the chest by one of the purple lights. Sakura screamed as Naruto fell to the ground.

_Sabaku Kyu_. (4) Gaara immediately turned around and wrapped the victims up in sand. _Sabaku Soso_. (4) He clenched his fist and crushed the wizards, but he heard a loud bang and he no longer felt anybody inside.

"You killed them?"

"No, but they're gone..." he said angrily. "Okay, who's the idiot who forgot to check these people for weapons?" he said to the growing crowd.

Slowly, everybody raised their hands. He sighed. Well, he forgot as well, so he couldn't really punish them an all. He leaned over Sakura's shoulder. Her hand was glowing green over Naruto's unconscious body.

"Is he alright?" he asked her.

"Uh...I think...there's nothing wrong with him!" she said. "Wake up, Naruto!"

He opened his eyes and looked up at them. "Huh?"

Tsunade and Jiraiya were already there. "What happened?" Tsunade asked.

"Naruto got hit by some spell," Sakura said to her master. "But nothing happened. Naruto's fine, in fact. I can't find anything wrong with him."

"I can't find anything wrong with me either," Naruto said, patting himself down. "In fact, I feel great!"

"We need to get inside where no one will eavesdrop," Sakura said. They all headed into Gaara's office. ((I know, they're ALWAYS in his office/house. But that's because it just happens to be at the center of the city. Easy to get too. And that's where they gathered the prisoner wizards who just so happened to get away.))

"Why would they stall and stay here, risking death, just to hit one of us with a spell that doesn't even seem to do anything?" Kurogane asked. Everyone looked down at him. "Fine, fine, the prisoner is shutting up," he said, looking annoyed.

"No, no, you've got a point," Tsunade said. "Who are you again?"

"He's no one," Gaara said. "A prisoner. One whose name will not be released. He'll be placed under house arrest. However, since there are no qualified jounins who has enough time to completely dedicate to watching over him, he may return with us to Hogwarts. Not as a paid shinobi, as the rest of us, but as a prisoner."

"_Oh_," Kurogane said.

"Another shinobi at Hogwarts?" Mikoto said. "I feel so left out!"

"Mikoto!" Gaara said. "This is a private conversation. No genins allowed!"

"But Naruto's a genin."

"Naruto didn't lose a match." Wait. He leaned over to Naruto. ("You didn't lose, did you?" he asked to Naruto, who shook his head.) "Yeah, he didn't lose."

"Sooo not fair," she grumbled, leaving. Gaara slammed the door shut after her, leaving Naruto, Tsunade, Jiraiya, Sakura, Kurogane, Shikamaru, and Temari inside of the room.

"Anyway," Gaara said, "this guy won't be a student. There are enough of us at Hogwarts right now. In fact, there's too much. We don't need so many shinobi there. Only the stronger ones."

"Pull some of the shinobi out?" Tsunade asked them.

"Yes," Gaara said. "We'll decide who leaves when we get there."

"But how can you say there are too many shinobi in their world?" Temari asked. "We're attacked by wizards, so wouldn't it make sense to bring more to their world instead of taking them back to ours?"

"It would," Shikamaru said, "but Gaara's right. We don't need so many at this school. The Triwizard Tournament is coming. There will be many other wizards there. It makes sense to leave a large amount of us there to keep an eye on things. But we should send shinobi to other places of their world, not just leave them all in one spot. There's also the fact that there were wizards in this world. This is probably the work of the Sound. They do this almost every year. I never thought they'd go as far to attack the Sand, of all, places, though. These guys are idiots. Still, there are dangerous spells. I say we should send a certain amount of shinobi back as well, just in case they return with a larger army, and maybe even some shinobi."

"What if we bring some wizards here?" Naruto asked. "Fight fire with fire!"

Everyone looked at him. "_No_." Even Kurogane thought he was crazy.

"Honestly, Naruto, you aren't thinking straight. Bring _wizards_ here?"

"The enemy did it."

"We're not our enemy."

"Obviously."

"We aren't bringing wizards to our world," Gaara said. "Period."

"Besides, only Dumbledore and Harry Potter knows who we are," Temari said. "We shouldn't blow cover just for that."

"We should get back as soon as possible," Shikamaru said. "Like, _now_."

"How?" Temari asked.

"Well, Dumbledore gave us those tacky pyramid necklaces to get back and forth between here and the Wizarding world. He says it's a Portkey but...I doubt it."

"Why?" Naruto asked.

"You don't need two versions of the same thing for a Portkey. You touch a Portkey, and it takes you to another place, and the Portkey goes with you. For this, it has two of them. I'm thinking, you activate it with your chakra and it takes you to the location of the second. I read about it. It's a variation of a Portkey, but you need to have a powerful wizard at the other end of the Portkey. I'd explain to you why, but I don't feel like it."

"Everyone get everything they need," Gaara said. "We're going back now."

"Oh, but what about the results of the chuunin exam?" Sakura asked.

"Oh, right, the top two winners become chuunins. Other than that, I didn't spot any other hidden talents among the losers," Gaara said. "Hurry. Now." He left the room quickly, puzzling most of the shinobi inside. Gaara was freaking out. He had just realized something very, very important. What he had forgotten...

WHERE DID HE PUT THAT DRESS?-!

"Looking for something, Kazekage-sama?" a voice asked.

"Maruko, what do you want?"

"Oh, Mikoto found this lovely, lovely dress before. She saw Sakura try it on but she didn't buy it. I put two and two together and decided that's why you left the Sand. To buy it back from the Kadaj. I heard they left a while ago and did a few calculations. Also, you may want to get the two puppets I finished for Kankurou back from whoever you had pretending to be you."

"How'd you know this?" Gaara asked.

"I caught your body double sleeping in the hallway, and he dropped a few hints when he woke up. Meditating? You? Nah." Maruko held up the bag with the dress. "I took a look at the dress. For a festival? I don't think so. It's better suited for a ball, if I may say so myself."

"No, you may not."

"Whatever. That's a dress that's not fit for a little festival. Something fancier. You like Sakura, Gaarakichi?"

That name was going around... "Yoshiko says so."

"I knew it. I suppose Mikoto's disappointed then," Maruko said. "She had an eye out for you. Anyway, I'll give you this dress if you take these things back with you to that school of yourse," he said, holding out a large box. "Don't open it. They might fly out."

"...What's in it?"

"Nothing much. Two birds and a few fliers advertising my store. Mail-order, you see? But don't open it."

Gaara had a feeling he shouldn't take the box, but he really did want that dress back. "I'll take it," he said.

"Thank you," Maruko said. "I'm sure Mariku and Mikoto are very happy with this new development!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing really. I'm surprised you finally liked a girl. She's cute."

"Don't you ever say that again."

"Hm, I didn't know you'd be bothered with it. After all, I'm almost a girl myself."

"...Don't you ever say that either."

"Aye, aye, Kazekage-sama," Maruko said with a salute. "Since you're leaving soon, I suppose I'll be mailing the property damages to you again?"

"Someday, I am going to get you to pay me back my money," Gaara muttered darkly.

"Keep dreaming," the merchant said. "I'll be keeping in touch." Gaara didn't know what Maruko had meant by that until later.

* * *

Sakura packed the clothes that Gaara had given her. Was she supposed to give them back or keep them here?

"Oi, Sakura, hurry up!" Naruto said. He held his fox by the scruff of the neck and the small box of face paint he had bought earlier. Why he had bought it, no one knew yet. "It's almost time for us to go!" He still had Maruko's bracelet, and Sakura still have the robes, the mask, and the gloves.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," she said. They returned to the conference room, where everyone was waiting for them. Except for Jiraiya. Where was he?

"So..." Naruto said, looking at the Portkey. "What do we do?"

"Think of it as a Rasengan," Tsunade suggested. "Focus on the thing in your hand, but don't blow it up. You're going last. We don't want you destroying it before at least one of us gets through."

Naruto frowned. "I'm not _that_ destructive."

"Don't kid yourself, Naruto," Gaara said, holding the pyramid necklace in one hand and his gourd under the other. Everyone was shocked. Another joke? But before anyone could react, he disappeared. Sakura caught the mini-pyramid next and disappeared as well. Then Shikamaru went after her. And Temari. And finally Naruto.

"Don't destroy it," Tsunade reminded him.

"I'm not stupid, I heard you the first time, Tsunade-baasan," he said cheekily. He focused on the pyramid and felt a hook in his stomach.

'A Portkey. Definitely a Portkey,' Naruto thought as he was jerked by his stomach from this world to the one of magic.

* * *

AND THE CHUUNIN EXAMS ARE OVER! Hooray!

(1) That's probably what everyone was thinking. Everyone Naruto fights in the manga goes through a change. There should be a "WE-GOT-SOME-SENSE-BEATEN-INTO-US-BY-NARUTO" club. Current members would include Konohamaru, Neji, Gaara, Inari, Zabuza, (sorta) Haku, Tsunade, (possibly) Jiraiya, Kiba (a little), and the newest member Kurogane (who has yet to admit to being defeated by Naruto). I got that from some fanart that someone drew.  
(2) Taju Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Technique): As Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, but creates far, far more clones. Like Kage Bunshin, the clones look the same as the user and will disappear if hit. This is considered a forbidden technique, because it can be fatal to the person performing it, seeing as all of the clones are given an amount of chakra from the performer. Naruto learned the technique from the scroll of forbidden seals.  
(3) Sabaku Taiso (Desert Imperial Funeral): When the enemy is buried under sand, it compacts the sand, thus crushing the enemies in a huge amount of it.  
(4) Sabaku Kyu (The Coffin of Crushing Sand) This Jutsu uses sand to grab the opponent and cover their entire body. This skill is primarily for rendering an opponent immobile, but can kill the opponent by suffocation or by being followed with the Sabaku Soso (Imploding Sand Funeral), which will implode and crush whatever is within his grip of sand. When used to kill a person, the death is so quick there isn't even time to feel pain. These two techniques go hand in hand.

* * *

To the anonymous '**hater**', who wrote: "this one's pretty lame...it's was okay at first but then it grew up to be..BORING and simply LAME I'd rather read a Yuri/YAOI than read this one..."— I honestly don't give a shit about what you think. Maybe I'm being a prick, not being able to take criticism very well. But if I'm a prick, then you're a dick (hey it rhymes! cool! but that's off the subject). I've got an issue of pride. I'm thinking "no, no! luv his fic! dun't insult it!" But all I want is CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. Do you not know what the hell that means? I guess I never really said it out loud (or wrote it in public...) but I don't want people saying "you/this/it/blah sucks!" and leaving WITHOUT telling me how I can fix it. For instance, many tell me that the chuunin exam section is getting too long. And it was. Like, 8 whole chapters of it. So I'm like, "okay, I'll shorten it." And I did/am. As you can see, I ended it there. **Was it the length of the chuunin drabble I was working on**? I have made many OCs in this fic. I consider about half of them to be throwaway characters and characters that will stay until a certain thing happens in this fic, which may or may not happen, depending on circumstances regarding this fic, the reviews, my current level of inspiration, energy, sugar and candy, and my mood. The most main of the OCs that I have are Madoka and Kurogane, who serve as 'spies'. Spies to give US THE READERS AND WRITER information about what is going on in all sides. I'm not saying two sides. I'm not saying three sides. I'm saying right now that there are going to be many sides and many conspiracies. Others don't matter and will serve a purpose in the future if they even stay in this fic. So... **Am I going completely crazy, making a shitload of extraneous characters**? Yes? No? Maybe? Ever since the chuunin exams started in this fic, I have been struggling to keep it light and humorous. Now that it is over and I am no longer suffereing writer's block, it'll be easier. **Is it _too _funny or _lacking _humor to such an extent that it is "BORING and simply LAME"**? Although I really have to say that when you type/talk like that, you really remind me of this wannabe genius at my school whom I _really_ detest. Of course, even though he tries to use big words in a scholarly tone, at least he can pull it off. 'Boring' and 'lame' are synonymous, therefore it's _repetitive_ and a waste of the fifteen minutes it had probably taken for you to think and type this thirty word comment. Due to the fact that this is an anonymous review, I can't really give you a review as helpful and insightful as the one you gave me. If you comment on how I may be able to fix the previous chapter, I will delete this response, as you would not be entirely useless as this comment had led me to believe.  
One last thing: don't diss the slash. I'm not all that interested in yuri, but I respect other people's opinions _and _sexual orientations. I like talent when I see it, so I don't act like homosexuality is like a contagious disease because then I might miss out on reading a good piece of work. **Respect others and shut up**. I don't like people who are **prejudiced against other races**. I don't like people who are **prejudiced against other sexes**. I don't like people who are **prejudiced against other religions**, and I don't like people who are **prejudiced against people who like slash**! I respect other people's works. For instance, if I see a couple I don't particularly like, like...say, I don't know, Shikamaru and Gaara (yes, I have seen one before), I'm not going to go on their fic and start posting "_omg omfBBQ _(what's that supposed to mean? barbeque? eh...?)_ yer r such a homo fuckin fag blah blah blah blah blah blah blah!_" I'm polite, and I'm higher than that. If I don't like it then I won't post. If I do post, then I'll just go, 'Wow, I have never thought of that couple before. Personally, I don't really prefer that couple, but it's more creative and spontaneous than anything I have ever thought of. Keep up the good work / Try adding more detail/plot/characteristics/etc.' I'm not rude as to go up to someone and diss their work WITHOUT OFFERING ADVICE. If you don't like this fic, then fine. Don't read it. Don't pay attention to it. No like, no read. Of course, _if you are going to post anyway, _you could always be polite and offer a bit of advice as to how to improve one's writing style, if you think it could use so much work that you have to post on how crappy it is. **Tell me what's wrong with my fic and I will always do my best to fix it. If you don't know what it's missing, then say that you don't like it because it's missing something important that you aren't very sure of. **Otherwise, close your mouth and shut up.  
That comment really reminded me of something I heard once. Don't know the exact words, but it went something like this: "I think all gay people should be moved to one spot," someone said. I'm thinking 'Oh, alright. That's nice. Then there would be less of a problem meeting someone with matching sexual interests, right?' And then the idiot goes like, "And then we could blow them up!" Now I'm like, what the fuck I'm sitting with some freaking terrorists. Are you a terrorist, you 'hater'? Do you want to blow up people who are different from you? I would call you a racist, but people who like slash can be any race. I would call you a sexist, but that's already taken. So now I am calling you a homophobe, because that really fits. I am proud to say that I am not a homophobe, and I don't really care about who other people are romantically interested in unless they like the same person I like. Then I'll have a problem with that, but only because I can't stand competition.  
So yes, to the 'hater', if you don't like my fic, then _fine_. Okay. But you ought to be careful in what you saw in all reviews if you spontaneously comment like that. You'll end up offending both the writer and those who enjoy slash/yaoi/yuri/etc. If you insult it, then be prepared to back it up with reason. I'm not a lawyer, but I like to make sense at least. That just makes me a normal human. (don't gotta be a lawyer to want all the facts, you know) And now, this response is not an attack on anyone. It's not me advertising yaoi. It's not me warning off all who comment. **_It's just a statement to 'hater' and friends that if you want to criticize my writing, go ahead, but be a good Samaritan and tell me why instead of leaving me hanging_**. (ugh, that's like when I sprained my ankle from jogging outside and was on the floor when I reallyreallyreally wanted a glass of water that was on the table but I couldn't reach...)

Now... that was the longest rant I have ever had. Complete with big, ostentatious/'I-think-I-am-oh-so-smart-because-I-toss-in-a-few-smart-sounding-words-that-are-still-simple-yet-end-this-with-a-homophobe-comment'. Smart, kid. That's just smart. But I do have to say thanks for letting me hit on you. Literally. Good stress reliever. Now...I was going to say something... Can't remember anymore. Oh yeah, my thoughts.

* * *

**My Thinking Corner**

I think I'm starting to get sick. A sore throat. Not that it matters, since all I do is type. Buuut, right now, I am currently facing several dilemmas. A few questions, in fact. Here they are listed below: THE THINGS BELOW ARE VEEERY IMPORTANT, SO PLEASE COMMENT AND ANSWER A FEW (at least one) OF THESE QUESTION THINGS!

1) (Harry Potter) What is the power that the Dark Lord knows not? _Love_? Heck no, that doesn't really do much. Nice idealism, but this is reality, folks. Sort of. Okay, not really, but think realistically. How many people in the world are happy in love right now? Soooo, since this story is completely AU anyway, what is Harry's hidden talent? Is he Jinchuuriki? That would cause a stir. Because now, Voldie's not the only one after him. Also, I mentioned earlier as someone's response that no, Harry will not be learning the Rasengan. First of all, if Harry Potter learns something, then he MUST be the best at it. He really is just a normal guy, but as the Boy-Who-Lived, he haaaas to be special in some way. Naruto has already mastered the Rasengan in like, a week. Let's see Harry top that. Actually, let's not. Naruto mastered it. It's old news. Not only that, but now Naruto has a better version of the Rasengan that only he alone can create. So if Harry learns it, he'll never 'measure up to Naruto's level'. There has to be something different.  
-**If anyone has any idea of a technique Harry Potter can use, then please tell... If you want him to be a Jinchuuriki instead, then that would help as well.**  
2) (Overcrowded) There are too many shinobi at Hogwarts. I either have to send them back to their own world or spread them out into the wizarding world. I need to know who should go?  
-If anyone has any idea concerning who goes where, please feel free to drop a hint on who you don't mind not reading about. **EDITTED: NO LONGER NEEDED**  
3) (Naruto and the Chakra beads) I already have a basic idea for Naruto's new weapon, but I'm just wondering...  
-Should Naruto have his own 'absolute defense' or no? I really like the idea of it, but it seems overrated, so I'm not very sure. **EDITTED: NO LONGER NEEDED.**  
4) (Chapter 16) I have already finished the most of chapter 16. Twenty-six pages and it'll probably get posted in about four or five days _IF LUCKY_. It'll probably be less than a week, I'll tell you that. But...I'm not sure, with all my work and stuff...  
-A Beta to read and comment on my future chapters would be greatly appreciated unless you're a hater who'll say 'this is lame' and leave. (yes, I am dwelling on that comment) **EDITTED: NO LONGER NEEDED**  
5) (New fic) I was recently struck by inspiration when I was hit in the head by a textbook not too long ago. After Chapter 16, I will be working on a new fiction featuring Romance and Humor between Gaara and a certain person whom I have not decided yet. It will be called 'The Bachelor' (or something) and be hosted by Temari! Soooo, here are the possible couples:  
-----a) Gaara X Sakura (I am loving this one. At first when I was writing/typing this fic, I was like 'Hm...this is going to be hard...' but now I'm like, 'I'M LOVING IT!')  
-----b) Gaara X Hinata (Really interesting. I've seen a few pretty good ones and am willing to try it out myself)  
-----c) Gaara X Ino (this I am totally unsure about. I read a good fanfic, featuring these two, but I'm not sure I can pull it off...)  
-----d) Gaara X Tenten (this I don't really want, but it's an option, I suppose...)  
-----e) Gaara X Anko (this is what I really want to try...so weird.)  
**EDITTED: NO LONGER NEEDED**  
6) (New techniques) This is mainly NOT for Naruto. I have many ideas concerning the development of new jutsus, and I definitely have enough. Anyway, Naruto is powerful, but he is also an idiot. A really dangerous idiot with a whole bunch of great techniques hidden up his sleeve that he has yet to show anyone. He isn't considered a genius, but he's still highly dangerous. Like an idiot with a gun.  
Buuuuut, there are several characters I am unsure about. I know Naruto has gotten a new Rasengan and I also have a few ideas for him. Sasuke, I can think of plenty, considering he was with Orochimaru. Sakura has her newfound super strength. Ino has new mind-penetrating jutsus (which I made up myself, so I'm not really spoiling anything that Kishimoto has planned for us because what I write is generally not real). Shikamaru has better mastery over his shadows. Gaara doesn't need jutsus, he can kill anyone without naming a jutsu. Kankurou has new puppets, among other things. Temari has received a new fan, better for catching, rather than just offing people when they need prisoners. (note that their new moves may be used in the future, since every once in a while, something I write about will actually happen, like Gaara's return). So, I need more ideas for the following people:  
-----a) Shino (all I know is that he has bugs and a new nifty looking bag. Any ideas for a jutsu for him or even just a strategy will be really helpful)  
-----b) Hinata (all I know about her is that she's still shy. That's not much at all. I considered giving her a chakra-recovering technique by plugging up chakra and helping them recover more chakra at an increased rate, but...anything else for this poor, defenseless, shy girl?)  
-----c) Kiba (anything at all? I'm sure I could probably just pull of making his attack power increase from when we last saw him fighting Ukon and Sakkon, but I like to try to be creative)  
-----d) Chouji (poor Chouji can do nothing but enlarge parts of his body like his hands. Anything else?)  
-----e) Lee (I'm sure Lee won't need much jutsus, since he can't really use chakra well anyway, so it doesn't really matter...)  
-----f) Tenten (She's almost talentless! She needs more weapons. I'm thinking she'd be good with a gun, but that's a bit _too _destructive...)  
**EDITTED: NO LONGER NEEDED **


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16: The Arrivals of Guests and Stowaways

Yaaaaay! Finally back at Hogwarts! I'm lacking the Golden Trio, so I guess I need to make more of an interaction.

* * *

Ino woke up that morning aching all over from the damage done that night. She touched her forehead and visibly winced at the touch. The room was startlingly green and mellow for a Griffindor room... She turned around and saw Sasuke laying next to her, not sleeping, just sitting there. 

"Eep!" She immediately rolled over towards the other side of the bed and fell off. "Ow..." she whimpered. She heard Sasuke who had managed to _stay _on the bed, cough. She sighed. Her whole body was tingly. It probably fell asleep from her long absence. Despite the insane tingly feeling in her body, she crawled back onto the bed, shaking. She looked around with the room. No wonder it was so different here. It was the Slytherin bedrooms. She and Sasuke were the only ones awake.

Kankurou was sitting at his desk where he had fallen asleep with several sheaves of crumpled parchment laying all around him. He had been trying to write a letter to a girl all night long. 'Probably Sarea,' Ino thought smugly. She always admired her own ability to bring the two most unexpected people together, whether they liked it or not... Now that she had Sasuke and the competition for him didn't really matter since the prize wanted her, she didn't really need to go on a rampage hooking up as many girls with guys as possible, but it was nice to know that she could do the impossible. Yes, it was a talent that Ino highly treasured: forcing two completely opposite people together. She had an eye for things like that.

Neji was also asleep in a chair, with Tenten using his shoulder as a pillow. Neji was only there because he was curious to see if his teammate could be 'fixed'. And the fact that Tenten was helping out probably helped convince him to come as well. Tenten's skills with a kunai were extremely necessary for this mission.

It seemed that Lee's bowlcut-styled hair was not just a tacky hairdo, but it worked as a helmet as well. They even threw a shuriken at it in frustration, to a disastrous result, as it merely glanced off his Helmet Hair and rebounded straight at the shinobi. Everyone screamed and ran out of the way except for Kankurou, who was busy musing over his many crumpled letters. ("Aaaaaah!" Kankurou cried, clutching his stabbed leg. "You idiots! No more knife or throwing in the room for you! Keep that stuff outside!")

In the end, they had to use Neji's chakra-cutting technique to style Lee's hair. ((You know, he had it when cutting Kidoumaru's webs...?))

After that came the most...interesting part of the makeover. The eyebrows... Ino (in Lee's body) was plucking the eyebrows. That... was where it all went to hell...

You see, Lee's eyebrows weren't _just_ ATTACHED to his forehead... They were _GROWING_ on it! Like a fungus, threatening to take over his brow, it seemed that for every strand plucked, a cluster more would grow. Lee's eyebrows...

...they seemed to be a completely different entity.

They were _aliiiive_! Of all the enemies these shinobi had faced, Lee's eyebrows were amongst the greatest of them all. Ino shuddered, cursing her imagination.

So in the end, everyone gave up on squeezing it. They used Tenten's kunai skills and finally resorted to shaving his eyebrows. The unevenness of it were barely recognizable. It was a major improvement

There was nothing that the shinobi team could do about Lee's spandex, though, since he seemed to have an infinite amount of spares. As for Lee's perfectly/abnormally circular eyes, it seemed they could do no more. But when all seemed lost, Shino had kindly donated one of his many spare sunglasses from Hogsmeade to their needs. In the meantime, Shino had also taken several pictures of Lee's transformation with one of the many cameras he had 'confiscated' from his official fanclub.

"_You really are a nice guy_!" Tenten had exclaimed while Shino took pictures for them.

"_...When was it that you had begun to think I was not_?" Shino asked her. A whole sentence!

"_I don't know..._" Tenten replied sarcastically. "_Maybe the first time I ever saw you when you blew off Zaku's arms_?"

"_Only one of this limbs came off. The second remained attached to his body_."

"..._You _still_ blew his arm off_."

"..." ((btw, it seems that I can't just "..." "..." "..." with lines between them anymore. Like how we can't use the caret sign on ffnet...))

"_Are you just being quiet or do you just not have an answer for that?_"

"_Both, I suppose._"

Ino sighed, as she collapsed back on the bed. She hated it when she left her body too long. When she did, it would fall asleep in her absence and be a big pain in the butt to move around again.

"Rigor mortis?" Sasuke asked her, propping his head up

"Nope. My body fell asleep on me."

"Ah."

"How long were you awake?" Ino asked him. Sasuke shrugged.

"About when you fell of the bed," he said with a smirk.

"Really?" Ino asked skeptically. "I could've sworn your eyes were open and you were blinking an all a little while before that, Sasuke-kun."

"In the Sound, I learned to sleep with my eyes open. At least one."

"_Really_?"

"Yes. Really. There's no telling what Orochimaru would do to me while I slept. Once, I woke up to him taking pictures of me while I was sleeping. That's when I started going to sleep with one eye open."

Ino shuddered. "Creepy old man. Never saw him, but I've got the idea. But is it really possible to sleep like that?"

"I think so. I just did and did so for the last...almost three years."

"True, true," Ino said, yawning. "Toooo eeaarly. I should leave soon. Maybe go to the infirmary. My forehead is just hurting... Lee and his stupid eyebrows..."

Sasuke kissed her forehead. "Aw, it hurts?" he asked her with a smile that melted Ino's heart. Soooo hoooot! Sasuke was never like this before he left. She liked this change.

"Noooo, not anymooore..." she gushed. Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"Ugh, _blonds_," he snorted derisively.

"Oh come on, what's wrong about being blond?" Ino asked.

Sasuke smirked. "You're all so airheaded. I'd say 'too cute' but one: I am Uchiha Sasuke and I hate cute things. And two: I know a blond who just isn't cute."

Ino gasped dramatically. "An uncute blond? That's _crazy_!"

Sasuke looked at the clock on the wall (are there even clocks in Hogwarts...?) and sighed. He got up late. "Well, it seems you're probably going to meet him soon anyway."

"Good," Ino said. "I've got to set him straight. You can not be an _uncute blond_! A disgrace to our name!"

"Quiet..." Neji said, glaring at them. "She's still sleeping...do _not_ wake her up," he said.

Sasuke and Ino exchanged glances. "Breakfast is starting in an hour and I should get back to the Gryffindor common rooms and stuff. I'm still wearing the robes I had from last night..."

"Does it matter?" Sasuke looked at Ino, who was wrapping her red and yellow Gryffindor scarf around her neck. He groaned.

"What?"

"Black, red, and yellow. Clashing so beautifully together, it hurts my eyes and makes me want to look away," Sasuke retorted.

"Oh, so I guess green, silver, and black is so much...wait, it _is_ better."

"We Slytherins are superior to you Gryffindorks in every way: fashion, color sense, and looks."

"Gryffindorks, eh? Creative."

"I know."

"But, well, you know...you weren't always like this back at Konoha," Ino said hesitantly. "You know... interested in people who weren't stronger than yourself."

"Yeah, I know that too," Sasuke said. "It's just that I spent almost three years in the Sound. Imagine going through puberty in a place like that—"

"Eh?-!" ('Oh my gooood! Saaaasuke-kuuuun! How could you?-!' T-T)

"—with the Sound girls being...well, you've seen a few of them. Living in some backwater country where all girls are rabid, think they're king of the country, and don't last five minutes in a fight," Sasuke said. (Example: Kin and Tayuya). "I expect the Sound will be dying out soon, with all of the male shinobi refusing to go out with Sound kunoichi..."

Ino laughed. They were about to leave the room when Sasuke paused in front of the door. "Prepare yourself," he warned her. "You are about to meet this irritating blond."

"Is he as bad as Naruto?"

"Worse. He's not even funny."

"Hey, you think Naruto's funny!"

Sasuke ignored that comment and slowly opened the door to find a Malfoy in their face.

"You brought Yamanaka in?" he shouted. "I told you before, I will not tolerate you dating or bringing Gryffindors into the Slytherin house!"

"Oh? Well what if I had brought _two_ in instead?" Sasuke asked with a smirk.

"TWO?"

"Yes. One. Two. I'm glad you can almost count. There are also two Ravenclaws as well. What are you going to do about it?"

"You cocky bastard!" Draco shouted.

"You albino result of inbred freaks."

"I'm not an inbred freak!"

"I didn't say you were. I called _you_ albino, and implied that both of your _parents_ are inbred," Sasuke corrected. Draco looked angry enough to hit Sasuke. Okay, no not really. Draco would never do something like that. But he looked angry enough to tell his two _stooges_ to hit him, although he didn't. Unfortunately for Draco, Crabbe and Goyle's favorite role model, their god, their idol...(get on with it!) woke up irritable with his face smeared and a twitch in his eye.

"Shut up, you idiots!" Kankurou shouted. Crabbe and Goyle immediately jumped up to him with stars in their eyes. ("My Lord!" they cried.) "Get offa me you freaks! I'm not your god!"

"Sabaku, your _friend_ brought a _Gryffindor_ into _our _House!" Draco said angrily.

"First of all," Kankurou said, his eye twitching as he removed the two burrs in his side with more force than necessary ("Those damn followers..."), "I am not on a first name basis with you. You know that. I'm glad you remembered that part at least. However, I am not on a surname or even a middle name basis with you. In fact, don't address me at all. Second, it's _two_ Gryffindors and _two_ Ravenclaws. Four others in all. Learn to count. Third, I don't care about what Uchiha does. And last, I don't like you. So if I hear you shouting this early in the morning one more god damn time, I swear on my mother, father, AND brother's grave that I will strangle you, stick your head in a toilet, and leave your spirit to haunt it for all eternity with Moaning Myrtle! Maybe I'll come back and try turning your body into a puppet like Chiyo-sama and Sasori did... but the point is: '_Talk to me and DIE_'!" Kankurou took a deep breath, looking very satisfied with himself and the frightened expression on Malfoy's face. He really did need to blow off the steam.

"You had a second brother?" Ino asked Kankurou, who currently had the expression of a shinobi on crack.

"A second one?" Kankurou repeated. "I could hardly stand the first. Gaara scares the hell out of me. The bullying gene runs in the family, I guess..."

"You mentioned three graves," Sasuke said, spotting the same thing Ino did. "Your mother, father, and brother's. Who's the brother?"

"Oh, the third grave is Gaara's."

"..." Sasuke and Ino didn't say anything.

"Last I checked," Sasuke said, "Gaara was alive."

"Yeah..." Kankurou said, shrugging. "When Gaara was killed, we immediately got some house calls from some people. They were offering discount flowers, discount fake wills, and other stuff. And then, Temari and I got a great deal on a lot (1)! discount graves. So I was like, oh, what the hell, sure why not? And so I bought a lot for Gaara. But then he came back, so... yeah. But at least now we've got a spare lot for whoever dies next, right?" Kankurou said cheerfully.

"You can say that..." Ino said, "...with a straight face. No, with a downright _happy_ face."

"Luck favors the prepared, darling," Kankurou said with a grin.

"Yeah..." Sasuke said. "At least you're... prepared..."

Meanwhile, Draco was staring with his mouth open. He and Sasuke rarely spoke to each other. They were natural enemies.

"Close your mouth, Draco," Ino said. "You look funny." Looking at Sasuke, then Draco, and then Sasuke again, Ino laughed. Now, she knew exactly why he and Draco were such natural enemies. They looked at Ino strangely as she collapsed on the floor. "...Hahahahahaha! Oh. My. God. You two...you two are exactly alike!"

"WHAT?-! Ino, how could you...?"

"No, I refuse to admit a relation of any kind to this blood traitor! My family is among the purest of the pure! The most noble, the—"

"What are you talking about?" Sasuke interrupted. "My clan was completely superior to yours! Uchihas are purer, more powerful, and _generations_ older than yours, and _we_ never had to resort to incest EVER!"

"What? Say that again to my face, Uchiha!"

"I just did, but if the incest in your family caused mental deficiency in your family, I'll repeat it just for you! We're purer, more powerful, older, and better than you! And no incest! No marrying cousins! No marrying our mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, or siblings...!"

"Ugh..." Kankurou groaned. This...this insane, egotistical conversation... all over again... "

All of a sudden, Neji came out of the room. "SHUT UP, TENTEN IS SLEEPING!" (hear neji roar!) Neji looked irritated beyond relief. Even the veins in his temple were bulging out.

"Don't tell me to shut up, mudblood!" Draco said.

"Make me! This is an insane conversation and you risk waking up a monster! And just so you know...HYUGAS TOTALLY OWN MALFOYS AND UCHIHAS! We're older than the Uchihas, and we're completely out of your league!" He paused, as if seeing something (or someone...) approach from another room. "...It's for your own good that you guys keep it down or else—"

"Shuuuuut... UUUUUUUUUUUUUUP!" someone shrieked like a crazed bird of prey. It was Tenten, her hair mussed up and her eyes blazing with anger.

"Crap," Neji said, his voice cracking up in fear, for her knew what was to come.

No one had any time to react before a large, spiky object flew into the center of the common room and blew up.

* * *

"...Now, kids, bringing in other students from other Houses to your own is against the rules here at Hogwarts..." Dumbledore said to the bandaged shinobi in the infirmary. Malfoy and his two henchmen were on the other side of the room. He had a smug look on his face. "...As is bringing in dangerous weapons." 

("Hah!" Malfoy sneered, hearing this from across the room.)

"However, I'll give you special permission to use them as long as you're off school grounds."

("WHAT?")

"Thank you sir," Tenten said, "but where will we be using them then, if not on school grounds?"

"Hm, I'm thinking in the Forbidden Forest," Dumbledore said.

"The Forbidden Forest?" Ino echoed. "As in the forbidden one that's off limits to students?"

Dumbledore chuckled. "Yes, but no one listens to the rules anyway. They'll go into the forest regardless of whatever we say..." (Mister Dumbledore sir...you are twinkling again...) "Anyway, I doubt that there's anything in the forest too dangerous for you to handle, but I beg of you to avoid centaurs, unicorns, and spiders."

"_Spiders_?" Neji repeated.

"Yes," Dumbledore said, seeming complete oblivious to the look of disgust on Neji's face. "Spiders. Acromantulas, to be exact. Very very large and dangerous. But as long as you don't go in too deep, I'm sure you'll be fine."

The Hyuga shuddered, and Ino did too.

"Ugh, I think I'll just skip out on the training," Ino said. "I don't feel like getting all muddy in the forest."

"_Girls_," Kankurou said scornfully. Sasuke glared at Kankurou but shrugged with a smirk on his face.

"I _know_," he said, sounding much to enthusiastic to agree with the puppeteer. "_Them_ and their _constant fussing_ over _makeup _and _dolls _and all that stuff."

"..." Kankurou didn't say anything, as if slowly digesting that bit of information from the comment. "...Say it again, Uchiha! I dare you!"

"Fine!" Sasuke snapped angrily. "You're a _giiiirl_! Wearing _makeup_!"

Kankurou had his chakra threads out, and Sasuke his Sharingan eyes. And Shizune a mildly poisonous gas, spewing from her mouth.

Sasuke and Kankurou fell to the ground gagging blue gas.

"Paralysis," Shizune explained to Dumbledore. She turned on the two boys. "THIS IS AN INFIRMARY SO YOU BETTER ACT LIKE YOU'RE IN ONE! SO BE SILENT AND IF I HEAR SO MUCH AS A PEEP FROM EITHER OF YOU I WILL SHUT YOU UP MYSELF!"

"I do believe that Madam Pomfrey is negatively affecting Miss Shizune's personality," Dumbledore mused as the lady yelled at the boys and dragged them back into bed. Shaking her head, she went to the next bed and began to heal Ino.

"No," Tenten whispered to their buyer. "She's shy and fierce at the same time. It just depends on her moods."

"Ah."

"Say," Shizune said. "Who's the kid over there?" she asked, pointing at Lee sleeping body. It was strange that he was still asleep. Maybe Ino stayed in his body too long. "I haven't seen him before. I'm guessing he doesn't take Care for Magical Creatures?"

"No, you've seen him before and he _does_ have Care for Magical Creatures," Ino said. "That's Lee."

"...Lee Jordan?" Shizune said. No, that kid had dark skin. This guy was Asian. He had a remarkable resemblance to Rock Lee, but it just couldn't—

"No, _Rock _Lee," Ino giggled. Shizune stopped in mid-heal.

"Rock Lee?" she repeated. "As in 'I'm-a-beautiful-green-beast' Rock Lee? The Mini-Gai clone?"

"Yup!"

Shizune was lost for words. Her mouth was still gaping open, unsure of what to say, but someone in another bed said it for her.

"...Ooh, Gai's going to have a cow," Asuma said, reading a newspaper. Oddly enough, he was seen without a cigarrette in his mouth. "Especially when he can't 'find Lee'. Ugh, he'll freak."

"Oh, hey, Asuma-sensei!" Ino said, now completely healed. "I haven't seen you in Divination recently."

"He's been staying in bed," Shizune said, shaking her head. "He claims to have been seeing death omens all day long... I'm going to get that darn Trelawney woman."

"Hey, speaking of death omens," Neji said, "when's Naruto coming back? Hogwarts has been awfully quiet as of late."

"It should be tomorrow," Dumbledore said. "Although I'm not sure as to why you consider him a 'death omen'... Hm..." The old man had a perplexed look on his face. He removed a tacky pyramid-shaped necklace and placed it flat on the floor.

"What are you doing, sir?" Tenten asked as Dumbledore backed up.

"It seems that our friends are ahead of schedule," Dumbledore said.

Shizune frowned. "What do you mean by 'ahead of sche—'"

There was a strange feeling in the room, as if they were being crushed by an invisible force. Everyone winced at the increasing force until...

A frighteningly familiar red-haired Kazekage appeared before the wizard, kneeling as if he had just fallen from a great height but managed to land lightly on his feet. He looked around in the room and froze suddenly, as if sensing something bad was going to happen.

Sakura appeared out of nowhere and landed on his back, pushing Gaara's face into the carpet.

"..." Great...now his cool entrance-pose was ruined.

"Oh my god, Gaara, I'm so sorry!" she cried, jumping away from his body. Apparently, a huge sand gourd and a girl was too much weight for him to suddenly bear...

Gaara pushed himself up from the ground, rubbing his forehead. Ow...rug burn... "I guess Shukaku wasn't expecting any attack..." he muttered.

"I'm sorry," she said, helping him up. Gaara shook his head and stood up, pulling her away from the pyramid pendant on the ground. "More are coming and if we both don't want to fall face first on the ground, I suggest we move out of the way."

And Gaara was right. Temari, Shikamaru, and Naruto appeared at the same time, Naruto sitting on top.

"Naruto..." Temari said slowly. "Get. Off. My. Back."

"What a coincidence!" Kankurou said with false cheer. "We were just talking about how you guys were coming back _tomorrow_."

"A change in plans," Gaara replied. "A handful of wizards and giants attacked my village. We decided that staying there with the Akatsuki or the Sound after us would be a bad idea so we left."

"You were attacked?"

"Yes. We have a prisoner, but not one with information. He wasn't even in on the attack, but he may still be dangerous, so I brought him along with me where I could keep an eye on him."

"Really? Where is he?"

Temari looked around. "Damn, did we lose him already?"

"No, we made him a bat and I stuck him inside my gourd," Gaara said. The top of the gourd parted so Gaara could reach inside. He grabbed a tiny bat from the gourd. It squeaked, complaining about the harsh treatment.

"But um...now that I think about it, we can't really keep an eye on him if we're always in classes," Sakura said with a frown. Gaara froze. Why didn't he think about that?

"What's that other stuff?" Neji asked, seeing something pink inside a box in his gourd. A pink blanket? It was really colorful as well.

"Oh, yeah," Gaara said, pulling out several boxes. "Kankurou's stuff. Here's your makeup. Kabuki Face Paint Set, Version 9.0 from Saburo's Face Paint and Cosmetic's Store... And two puppets from Maruko. They come together or something. He also gave you a few extra parts for you two play with." He handed Kankurou a box and a scroll. Sakura had a sudden thought and laughed out loud.

"Uh...you go crazy?" Naruto asked her.

"Sorry, sorry, I just had a sudden thought..." she said. "Just when Gaara was handing out the boxes from his gourd like that... It reminded me of 'Santa Claus'."

No one said anything, imagining a Santa Gaara.

"Ugh... I think I'm scared of Christmas now," he said with a shudder. "But what about those two boxes? Are they mine?"

"This one is the Makoto's. They're planning on selling products by mail-order." Gaara opened the box to reveal a vivid red parrot and a large canary.

"A parrot?" Sakura said. "I wonder if it could talk!"

"Yes," the parrot said. "I can!"

"Ooh, how cute!" Sakura said.

"Shut up!" the canary said to the parrot, kicking it with a taloned foot.

No one said anything.

"Can _canaries _talk?" Tenten wondered.

"Well, it just did," Shikamaru said. "I guess they can now." Gaara frowned, now suspicious of his two new birds. Or annoyed. Now he had three birds to take care of: Yaksa, the parrot, and the talking canary.

"Hey, Naruto, what's in that bag?" Kankurou asked him, looking through the face paint.

"Oh this?" Naruto asked, holding up his own bag. Vikki jumped out of it. "Well, I bought two colors from that makeup store and..." Vikki might have jumped out, but the bag was still heavier than it should have been. He opened the box and frowned. There was a Dark Black and Pasty White but... there was an odd shade of red. Naruto sensed something powerful from it and tossed it to the ground in front of him.

Sasuke and Neji activated their doujutsu and Naruto stood in a defensive stance, prepared for whatever enemy that had tagged along with them. But they weren't prepared for _this _guy... Even though the hitchhiker was shoved into a wall by a torrent of sand, they _still _weren't prepared...

"Ergh..." the man moaned. Naruto's eyes widened.

"Hey, it's the ero-sennin!" Naruto said, pointing at the white haired man. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Stop calling me that," Jiraiya said. "I came to keep an eye on you kids."

"YOU MEAN KEEP AN EYE ON ALL THE GIRLS!" all of the shinobi in the room shouted.

"Well, some of you are girls," the man said with a grin. Naruto looked at Sasuke who shook his head.

"He is who you say he is," Sasuke said. "There is no genjutsu on him."

"Okay," Naruto said.

"But...there is a genjutsu on Gaara's birds."

"Eh?"

Sasuke suddenly lunged forward. "_Kai_!"

There was a 'foop' of smoke (hehehe, 'foop') and the two birds became people.

"Oh crap," one of them said. The taller one grinned sheepishly at Gaara.

Gaara stared at the two newest arrivals. "...How could I _not_ see this coming?"

"Ehehehe..." the smaller one laughed nervously. "Hey... Gaarakichi."

Gaara sighed and rubbed his head. "Good gods," he said. "You're _here_."

"Well, I'm not there," the redhead said, pointing at a random direction.

"Who is this?" Tenten asked.

"Makoto Mikoto and Makoto Mariku," Temari said, hiding a smile. "Mikoto, the younger, is Gaara's self-proclaimed personal assistant. The older is a jounin of the Sand."

"It seems..." Shizune said, "that we have just accidentally smuggled three of us back here..."

"Maybe we should tell the Minister?" Temari suggested.

"Right," Shikamaru said. "I can see it now: 'Hey, Fudge, we've just accidentally smuggled in a shitload of illegal immigrant-ninjas from another world... What do you mean we're under arrest?' Ugh...how troublesome."

Gaara frowned. "Or maybe it's not as troublesome as it seems," he said. "Why are you two here?"

"I want to be with my Gaarakichi!" Mikoto said enthusiastically, jumping on him only of have his hand in her face to keep her distance, much to everyone's amusement.

"I'm here to set up shop," Mariku said.

"Like...as in selling your products to the locals."

"Yes."

"Good."

"_Good_?" Temari repeated. "How is this _good_? They'll destroy the place!"

"We'll send them to Hogsmeade," Gaara said. "Mariku is a very capable jounin. We need to spread out sources, so we'll do it. I supply a little bit of money for them to start up, and we give our prisoner to to them for them to watch over. This guy isn't going to cause any problems. They keep an eye on each other, we keep our eyes open for anything else."

There was a flash of light. And then a series of flashes as cameras went off.

"..." -

Everyone turned to look at Shino, only to see that the two jackets propped up on the chair were actually empty. Kankurou nudged the jackets and they fell in, apparently empty for some time now. "Guys, we lost Shino..."

"What's with all the cameras?" Gaara said in a low voice, feeling irritated by the flashing lights that began to slow down with the flashing after the fanclub realized that Shino had escaped.

"I thought Shino was awfully quiet, sitting still like that," Tenten said.

"He left a while ago," Neji said.

"I don't get it," Sakura said.

"It looks like we'll have a lot to discuss," Temari said.

"Discuss away," Dumbledore said, closing the curtains around the shinobi. "You have excused tardies, but try not to stay too late. I'll tell your other friends that you have returned as well."

((by the way, Jiraiya knows English but the Makotos don't. Kurogane's being the translator. The translation spell on the hitai-ates have to be renewed every few weeks, but they can't constantly be going in and out of the school. You know, those protection anti-muggle spells?))

* * *

Harry went down for breakfast at in Great Hall. It was greatly decorated with a red and gold lion for Gryffindor, a green and silver snake for Slytherin, a blue eagle banner for Ravenclaw, and a black and yellow badger for Hufflepuff. The whole hall was looking much greater, Harry had noticed. Even the hallways looked cleaner than before. The armors were shiny enough to see your reflection, the floor was clear of all the grime, and somehow, even the students looked more eager. 

Because the Beauxbatons and the Durmstrang students were coming that very day.

It was the main discussion that morning. Everyone was talking about it, wondering what the tasks were and who the champion of Hogwarts could be. At the professors' table, Kiba, Hinata, Chouji were talking to the headmaster. They didn't seem to care much for the other arriving students and were more excited by something else. Hinata smiled happily. Kiba grinned and tried to give her a high five, but she looked up at him looking a bit shy. Kiba grinned and high fived Chouji instead.

They went to Herbology that day with Ron and Hermione. All of the shinobi that were 'training' him were gone from class now. Ron was busy freaking out about the last class of the day. Potions with Snape and Anko. Before, it had been partly bearable, if not partly tense, in their class, with Anko and Snape at each other's necks all the time, possibly trying to kill each other, but recently, Anko hadn't been acting up too much. It was horrible, really, with both of them ganging up on the Gryffindors. After Herbology was Divination, where even Trelawney was affected by the spreading excitement of the Beauxbatons. She completely ignored Ron as he struggled to finish his work for Potions.

"I haven't finished the Potions essay on the Age potion!" he said frantically, inCare for Magical Creatures. "Hermione, help me!"

"Ron, you are an idiot," Hermione said, and they both struggled to finish Ron's work by the end of class.

In Potions, it was as bad as ever, with Anko running all over the room, hovering people's potions and occasionally sabotaging their work. Yet, as bad as it was when the classes started, very few wanted to leave by the end, when Anko finally cracked and began getting into a big argument with Snape. They had closed the door of the office, but they could still hear it anyway.

"You. Are NOT. A vampire!"

"Yes I am!"

"No you're not!"

"Yes you, I mean, I am! Prove it I'm not!"

"Yesterday you were making sand castles while you were supposed to be in my class. You were sitting in the sand on the quidditch pitch in the middle of the day with the sun on your skin!"

"Oh."

"I demand to know what's really been going on!"

"I demand you kiss my feet! And then I'll tell you!" Several students laughed out loud at this.

"You're as mature as Weasley!"

("Hey...")

"Ooh, that's just low... Well you're as... you're as... you're stupid!"

"Oh, brilliant comeback, Mitarashi."

"Thank you. Wait, were you being sarcastic?-!"

"...You are, no doubt, the slowest person I have ever met in my existence."

"You're ugly too!"

"Mitarashi... I'm giving you to the count of five to tell me just what's been going on with your body changing like that—"

"Uh, you bastard! How dare you question my monthlies!

"You know what I mean. Five..."

"Uh..."

"Four..."

"I'm a werewolf!"

"Tomorrow's a full moon. You'd be sick if you were a were-anything. Three..."

"I'm just a weirdo with fangs?"

"Two..."

"Oh, I know, I'm Japanese!"

"MITARASHI!"

"SNAPE!"

The bell rang. Some students were disappointed. Just when it was getting interesting too. Ron sighed in relief. Live another day. No one even had to turn in their essays.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione left the classroom, and headed for the Griffindor tower. Hedwig flew inside, a message from Sirius.

_Haha, nice try Harry _

_I am very well hidden and I'm perfectly fine. I want you to keep me posted and up-to-date on everything that's been going on in Hogwarts. I've heard a bit about a few strange people at Hogwarts. Don't use Hedwig, keep changing owls, and don't worry about me. Just watch out for yourself. Don't forget what I said about your scar. _

_—Sirius _

"Why switch owls?" Ron asked.

"Well a white owl isn't native here, so one that keeps on coming back and forth to the same places is a bit suspicious," Hermione said.

Harry pocketed the note into his robes. Now that he thought about it, at least Sirius was close by. It was a bit of a relief that he wasn't somewhere across the world or anything so if something happened, he'd be able to help out his godfather. And then he wouldn't have to wait forever just for a short reply to his letters. Each of the students returned to their towers to change to cleaner clothes. The Hogwarts students wore their normal robes and cloak, but the shinobi wore their headbands as well, recently shined and polished, mostly arranged on their foreheads.

The teachers were on full alert for any who looked out of place. Which many did. Especially in Slytherin. And Snape, being in a particularly bad mood, was determined to try to destroy everyone else's good moods.

"Aburame," he snapped. "Lose the sunglasses." Aburame Shino's now officialized fan club was hovering around, waiting for Shino to remove the sunglasses so they could get a picture.

"...No." Did Shino say something? Nah, it must have been his imagination. The Aburame didn't talk. But he didn't removed the sunglasses or the coats either.

"Sabaku," Snape said, continuing to glare at his students. "Remove the makeup."

"It's not makeup! And no!"

"Wash it off."

("If you say wash it fast enough," Anko said to a random student, "it'll sound like Snape's saying, 'Why shit?'" "Be quiet, Mitarashi." "No.")

"No!"

"Now."

"No!"

"_Scourgify_!"

"...AAAAAAAH! I'm clean! I'm clean! My face is cleeeaan!"

"Good lord," Anko said cheerfully as Snape left, "you look really bad without makeup!"

Kankurou grumbled and took out a box (from nowhere?-!). "Heh, idiot doesn't know... I _always _carry a spare kit with my face paint around." And Kankurou proceeded to repaint his face. A brave guy, with Snape glaring at him like that before he left.

"Ah. Well, students, follow me please," Professor McGonagall said briskly walking towards the Entrance Hall. "First years in go front... Move quickly, please."

"You push me and you will die..." Kankurou said to a first-year Ravenclaw who was struggling to get in front as the professor had told them to. They filed down the steps and lined up in front of the castle. It was a cool clear evening and it was getting darker; a pale, almost full moon was already shining over the Forbidden Forest. As the students headed out to the castle steps, they were joined by others.

Hinata blushed when a blond jumped and hugged her from behind. "Guess who?" he said, covering her eyes.

"N-N-Naruto..." she said, blushing.

"Aw, Hyugas are no fun with guessing games," Naruto said sulkily. But then he returned to his usual perky and overenthusiastic mode. "But I'm a chuunin! I'm a chuunin! I've got a green vest and everything! I mean, it's useless right now, since I'm not really allowed to wear it because of the school dress code, but it doesn't matter because I'm a chuunin!"

"D-Dumbledore said you came back this morning but you were just having a checkup," Hinata stuttered.

"Yup, I got hit by a weird spell, but it didn't really do anything to me," he said with a grin. "I'm so awesome that normal spells won't do anything to affect me!"

"Sure, keep thinking you're god," Kiba said sarcastically. "Someday, it just might happen."

Sakura edged towards Sasuke and Naruto, attempting a conversation. It seemed that Gaara was back as well, easily noticeable in the crowd with the large gourd he carried on his back. He had a red parrot on his shoulder, but its mouth was forced shut with a rubber band wrapped around it. With Gaara nearby, all conversations stopped. He glared at them. They were giving him those looks again. There were the ones he hated, fear and loathing. And then there were the ones he feared, admiration and a slight bit of obsession. He was half-tempted to threaten them into talking again, but that would've been weird.

And so they waited in silence. Five minutes passed by. And another five minutes. And ano—

"What's taking them so long?" Sasuke muttered.

"Traffic?" Naruto suggested.

"What time is it?" Kiba asked Ron, feeling a bit irritated.

"It's nearly six," Ron said, checking his watch and then staring fown the drive that leg to the front gates. "How d'you reckon they're coming? The train?"

"I doubt it," Hermione said. "The only train tracks that lead to Hogwarts are the ones starting at 9 3/4."

"Broomsticks?" Harry said.

"Not at this distance," Shikamaru said from behind. "It's too far. Beauxbatons is off at France. Judging from the name of the headmaster of Durmstrang and the students, I'm guessing the other is somewhere around Bulgaria."

"You know a student from Durmstrang?" Hermione asked him. "Like, as in pen pals?"

"No. If you looked, you'd see that you've seen one too. A quidditch player, actually," Shikamaru said with a shrug.

"Maybe they're coming by Portkey," Naruto suggested. They had been using Portkeys a bit, recently.

"And how many would be traveling with a Portkey?" Harry said sensibly. "It's got to be a lot of people traveling on one object."

"Or they're Apparating here," Ron said. "Maybe the legal age limit for Apparating is under seventeen wherever they come from?"

"You can't Apparate inside the Hogwart grounds," Hermione said impatiently. "How often do I have to tell you?"

"A lot more if you want it to stick," Naruto said.

"What. The hell. Is that?" they heard Neji murmur to Tenten.

"Hey..." Tenten said, looking up at the sky. "Whatever it is, I think I see it."

"Aha!" Dumbledore said, at the back of the crowd. "Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegates from Beauxbatons approach!"

"Where?" the students asked. Neji and Hinata saw it clearly and were too surprised to tell them what it was, but something large was hurtling across the deep blue sky toward the castle, growing larger by the second.

"It's a dragon!" someone shrieked.

"Don't be stupid," Naruto retorted. "It's a flying house!" Everyone stared at Naruto. -.-

Oddly enough, Naruto was very accurate. The giant black object skimmed over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest. In the darkness, they could see a giant, light blue, horse-drawn carriage, the size of a large house, soaring toward them. It was pulled by a dozen winged horses, each the size of something that was very large.

"Um, guys?" Naruto said nervously, backing up. "The uh...flying house... it's coming over here. Like, straight at us..."

The students edged backward. The carriage was still hurtling at a high speed. It didn't even look like it was going to slow down. Screw edging away. The students ran for their lives as the carriage landed, bouncing up and down a few times with amazing force. Its path went straight through where the students had previously been standing.

Naruto was on the ground, next to the giant wheels, twitching slightly. "If there was a driver... I would kill him."

He was right. There was no driver for the carriage. The reins were connected to the front of the carriage, but no one was there.

A woman stepped out of the carriage with her giant, sled-sized feet. She was twice as tall as a man and had a pale face featuring large black eyes and a sharp nose. Her hair was in a tight bun, similar to Professor McGonagall's, and she was dressed from head to foot in black satin with gleaming opals at her throat and on her rings.

"My dear Madame Maxime," Dumbledore said, kissing her giant hands. The lady giant had to bend low for him to do so. "Welcome to Hogwarts."

"Dumbly-dorr," she said in a deep voice. "I 'ope I find you well?"

"In excellent form, I thank you," he said.

"My pupils," she said, waving one of her enormous hands carelessly behind her.

Harry forced himself to look away from the elephant of a woman and noticed about a dozen boys and girls in their late teens that were standing behind her. They shivered, given that their robes were made of fine silk, unsuited for the colder Hogwarts climate. They were staring up at Hogwarts with apprehensive looks on their faces.

"'As Kakaroff arrived yet?" Madame Maxime asked.

"He should be here any moment," Dumbledore said. "Would you like to stare here and meet him or step inside and warm up."

"Warm up, I think," she replied. "But ze 'orses—"

"Our Care of Magical Creatures teacher will be delighted to take care of them," Dumbledore said. "Once he finishes dealing with a slight situation that has arisen with some of his other…charges."

Skrewts. Ron and Harry grinned.

"My steeds require…forceful 'andling," she said, looking doubtful. "Zey are very strong."

"Well, then Ms. Haruno, Ms. Hyuuga," Dumbledore said. Hinata and Sakura stepped forward. "These are foreign students that I have accepted. Foreign exchange students, in a way. They will hold the horses here until Hagrid arrives."

"Zese little girls?" Madame Maxime asked, surprised. "Zey look so fragile."

"No worries. Madame Maxime," Dumbledore said. "Unless you two wish to wait out here along with the rest of the students," he said to Hinata and Sakura.

Hinata blushed and shook her head.

"The stables are a bit warmer," Sakura answered. "We'll take them in." She and Hinata bowed slightly before taking the reigns of the horses.

Madame Maxime watched in surprise as the two girls half-led, half-dragged the horses towards Hagrid's stables. One of the horses under Sakura's control tried to pull away and rear back, but Sakura kept her feet planted firmly in the ground and slapped the horses side, nearly causing it to topple over to the left. The horse stumbled to keep its balance.

"Zose girls, zey are much stronger than zey appear," Madame Maxime said in surprise.

"Yes, they were trained by a lady who was rumored to have a giant's strength. Or perhaps more. She is very famous, where they are from."

"Well, will you please inform zese children and 'Agrid that ze 'orses drink only single-malt whiskey?"

"Of course."

"Now, come," Madame Maxime said to her students. The Hogwarts crowd parted to allow her and her students to pass up the stone steps.

"How big do you reckon Durmstrang's horses are going to be?" Ino wondered.

"If they're any bigger than this lot, even Hagrid or the girls won't be able to hand them," Hermione said.

"Well, Sakura and Hinata can handle a lot of things," Naruto said, remembering how hard Sakura could hit, crushing boulders with her fists.

"I'll take your word for it," Harry said before Hermione, being as sensible as she always was, could reply. Hermione had never seen these people in action. He had never seen Sakura or Hinata display any particular talent, aside from a surprising strength or sense of balance, he was sure that this wasn't all they could do. After all, Lee could practically fly, the Hyugas had white eyes and could see perfectly fine, if not better than others, Sasuke's eyes would occasionally go red, and Anko can fall down three flights of stairs without a single bruise.

"I do hope Hagrid's okay," Hermione said, throwing Harry a suspicious look. She hated being left out on things, but Harry had sworn to Dumbledore that he wasn't going to tell anyone any vital information about these people. "I mean, the skrewts are _dangerous_. I wonder what's wrong with them?"

"Maybe they've escaped," Ron said hopefully.

"Oh, don't say that," Temari said, shuddering at the thought.

"Yeah, imagine them, loose on the grounds," Hermione said.

"Yet _another_ dangerous species to add to the list in the Forbidden Forest," Ron said, remembering the spiders.

They all shivered in the cold air, waiting for the Durmstrang party to arrive. Most people were looking up at the sky.

Akamaru, sitting on his haunches nudged at his master.

"I hear something," Kiba announced. arry listened. A loud and oddly eerie noise was drifting toward them from out of the darkness: a muffled rumbling and sucking sound, as though an immense vacuum cleaner were moving along a riverbed. A few of the students who heard Kiba's comment looked in the direction of the strange sound.

"Hey," Kankurou said to Temari with a thoughtful look on his face. "You know that giant squid everyone here always talks about? You know, the one that tried to eat Kiba?"

"Yeah," she said with an interested look on her face. "What about it?"

"I think it's farting." He pointed at the lake.

"The lake!" Lee Jordan yelled, pointing down at it. "Look at the lake!"

From their position at the top of the lawns overlooking the grounds, they had a clear view of the smooth black surface of the water—except it wasn't smooth anymore. Great bubbles were forming on the surface, and waves were now washing over the muddy bans as if some disturbance were taking place deep in the center. A whirlpool appeared, and then, a long black pole began to rise slowly out of the heart of the whirlpool. Then there was a rigging.

Akamaru barked, wagging its tail excitedly.

"It's the mast of a ship!" Kiba said.

Slowly, the ship rose magnificently out of the water, gleaming in the moonlight. It had a strangely skeletal look about it, as though it were a resurrected wreck, and the dim, misty lights shimmering at its portholes looked like ghostly eyes. Finally, with a great sloshing noise, the ship emerged entirely, bobbing on the turbulent water, and began to glide toward the bank. Moments later, they heard the splash of an anchor being thrown down the in the shallow part of the water and the thud of a plank being lowered onto the bank.

The silhouettes of very large, bulky people were seen exiting the ship. As they drew closer, Harry realized that they weren't really all that big, but they looked large from all of the heavy fur coats they wore.

"Dumbledore!" a man with a sleek and silver coat that matched perfectly his hair called heartily. "How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?"

"Fine," Dumbledore said.

"...Fruity," Sasuke muttered. "That's all I can say about him."

He shook hands with Dumbledore. "Dear old Hogwarts," he said, looking up at the castle. He smiled, revealing nauseatingly yellow teeth, which remained cold and shrewd. Ino cringed and looked away. Ew...

"How good it is to be here, how good. Viktor, come along, into the warmth…you don't mind, do you, Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold…"

Karkaroff beckoned forward one of his students. As the boy passed, Harry caught a glimpse of a prominent curved nose and thick eyebrows. He didn't need Ron's punch on his arm or the hiss in the ear to recognize him. It was Krum.

"I don't believe it!" Ron said in a stunned voice. "Krum, Harry! Viktor Krum!"

"Obviously," Shikamaru said. "No one else has a nose and eyebrows like that."

"Well, Lee used to have the eyebrows," Temari whispered. She didn't want to draw any of Lee's attention towards his new face. It would be interesting to see how long it took until Lee figured out his face didn't look so funny anymore.

As they recrossed the entrance hall with the rest of the Hogwarts students heading for the Great Hall, Harry saw Lee Jordan jumping up and down on the soles of his feet to get a better look at the back of Krum's head. Several girls were frantically searching their pockets as they walked.

"Oh, I don't believe it, I haven't got a single quill on me!"

"D'you think he'll sign my hat in lipstick?"

"Selling quills and parchment! Selling quills and parchment!" Kiba said loudly near them. "A Galleon for each!"

"No way, mutt, that's way too much!" someone exclaimed.

"I'll buy it!" another said, waving gold in the air.

"Sold, to the girl with the hat!" Kiba said. "Do not fret, ladies and gentleman, I've got more! Sellng it at a Galleon and a Sickle now! A Galleon and sickle for each!"

"_Honestly_," Hermione said loftily as Kiba gathered money from eager students.

"Oi, Harry, a discount for you an Ron if you two could hook me up with a box set of your brother's Ton Tongue Toffees!" Kiba said to them, but in the current of the cowd, Kiba got swept away by his own customers.

"Nevermind…!" Kiba said, struggling to get away from them. The Beauxbatons huddled at the Ravenclaw table, looking around the Great Hall with sullen and glum faces.

"They're at _our_ table," Tenten said.

"It's not _that_ cold here," Hermione said, frowning at the Beauxbatons' disdainful faces as they shivered in the Great Halls.

"Over here, come and sit over here!" Ron hissed loudly. "Over here! Hermione, budge up, make a space—"

"What?"

"Too late," Ron said bitterly.

Viktor Krum and the other Durmstrang students were already heading towards the Slytherin table. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle looked particularly smug at this. As Ron watched, Malfoy headed in their direction to speak with Krum.

"Yeah, that's right, smarm up to him, Malfoy," Ron said with bitterness in his voice. "I bet Krum can see right through him, though... bet he gets people fawning over him all the time... Where d'you reckon they're going to sleep? We could offer him a space in our dormitory. I wouldn't mind giving him my bed, I could sleep on the floor."

Meanwhile, at the Ravenclaw table, the haughty Beauxbatons students were looking quite condescending at the Hogwarts students and the castle. Neji frowned, having been separated from Tenten in the crowd. He pushed pass a group of them, only to find that when his hands met them to move them out of the way, his hands 'stayed' with them. Oh no... he had some girls attached to his hands. No, not_ just his hands_. Neji was starting to get nervous as they swarmed up to him. They were getting attached to _him_.

"Oh my, 'e 'as white eyes!" one of the girls said.

"Oh, 'e does!" another said, leaning in uncomfortably close to him. "It is so strange!"

"Are you really from zis school? You don't look the type, and you're uniform is a bit different," a third one said.

"My name is Brigitte, what is yours?"

"What kind of 'air conditioner do you use?"

"Your 'air is so nice and silky!"

"Please, untie your 'air, we wont to see just 'ow long and pretty it is!"

"I wont to comb it!"

Oh. Hell. No. Where was Tenten when he needed her?-! Neji looked through the crowds with his Byakugan, ignoring the girl who pulled out the string tying his hair. Tenten was... she was surrounded by those SISSY LOOKING BEAUXBATON BOYS! Crap, he had competition!

Neji abruptly left his fangirls and headed towards Tenten, glaring at the boys who were surrounding her...

"You are so cute!"

"What does your 'air look like when it is down?

"What ees your name, little geerl?"

"Uh... Ten...ten..." she said shyly, trying to get away from them.

"Oh, is Ten your last name too?"

'_Neeeeejiiiiiii! Where aaaree yoouuuu!_' Tenten thought in despair when a pair of arms wrapped around her shoulder.

"I see you've met my very close friend," Neji said stiffly, holding her in his arms and glaring at them with freaky white eyes.

There was a brief moment of silence as the guys were judging whether Neji was a homosexual girl or a boy with long hair.

"I saw a white-eyed girl take away ze 'orses. Is she your sister? She ees very adorable."

"And _your_ geerl is very nice too."

Oooh no. He was not going to let them have Tenten, and he was not going to let them have his cousin. Neji had the giant four pointed vein on his forehead in addition to his Byakugan veins when a glowering Sakura approached him. She took off her hitai-ate headband/hairband.

"_Don't do anything stupid to bring unwanted attention to ourselves_," she warned in Japanese.

"You 'ave pink 'air!" someone exclaimed.

"Ees it naturally pink or do you dye it or are you a Metamorphmagus?" They all began crowding around her.

So much for a low profile...

* * *

Viktor Krum, however, was having much more luck avoiding crazed fans at his table. 

"I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy," he said, holding out his hand to Krum as he headed for a seat. Krum sighed inwardly. He had hoped that since this group seemed the least friendly, they'd be less toadying towards him.

"I vuld introduce myself, but you already know who I am," Krum said sullenly. But…there seemed to be a group of kids who didn't act all abnormally bubbly at his arrival to Hogwarts. Most of them were sitting at this 'Slytherin' table. And where they sat, there weren't so many seats filled up.

The most distinctive of this group was the red-haired boy with black… eyeliner, that didn't really look like real eyeliner. A larger boy (the largest in the group) wearing a strange hat with catlike ears and a heavy coat of makeup like a rockstar in the muggle world.

Krum sat down at this table. There were plenty of seats nearby where his fellow Durmstrang classmates sat. And, surprisingly, not many people dared to sit at the few empty spaces left. Others tended to avoid this area. He dully noted that he was probably sitting with the less popular (or more dangerous) crowd, but also realized with relief that despite his fame, _they didn't care_.

"Hi," the only girl at the table said.

"Hi," Krum replied. The whole table was silent, except for the other Durmstrang students conversing among themselves in their own language.

"_These people are so strange..._" one of his classmates whispered to another in Bulgarian (is that a language?)

"_I know_," his classmate's friend said. "_Why sit over here with all the weirdos?_"

"You wanna say that again to my face?" the one with the face paint asked them with a threatening gleam in his eye.

They understood what they were saying?

"No."

The girl shrugged and shoved the taller one to the side. "Ignore my brother. He's not allowed to fight anyway. I'm Sabaku Temari," she said. "You?"

He was pleasantly surprised she didn't know him. "I am…Viktor Krum. Nice to meet you, Sabaku."

"Oh, we're foreign exchange students from, uh, Japan. Our names are switched. My 'first name', as you would put it, is Temari. These are my brothers, Sabaku Kankurou, and Sabaku Gaara. Tall, dark, and brooding over there is Uchiha Sasuke (hehe, got that from Shika-kun). The one who's got the sunglasses is Aburame Shino. If you were expecting some pleasant conversation over here, sorry, you're not getting one. The closest thing to entertainment you're going to get is watching me beat the snot out of Kankurou. Otherwise, this seems to be the Table of Complete and Uncomfortable Silence, because people here don't say a thing."

"Are all Japonese…?" He didn't know how to finish the sentence.

"Jap_on_ese," Temari repeated snickering. "Heh, that sounds so much cooler. Anyway, are we all always so mellow? Heck no, you should see a guy named Naruto. He's like, the complete opposite of Sasuke and Shino and Gaara and, sorta, Kankurou. Kiba's a bit nutty too. He was the one screaming in the hallways making money off of you."

Krum remembered him very distinctly. He was smart, to make money off of selling quills. Crazy prices, though. Surprisingly, 'Kiba' didn't bother using his own quills and parchments to ask him for an autograph. Strange.

"Wait, or did you mean indifferent to social status?" Temari said. "Because that's a no too. You wouldn't believe how many people suck up to Gaara here back home."

"Is he a very important person?"

"You could say so," Temari said, avoiding the question slightly. "Gaara's a bit higher up on the food chain of social status than us."

"Ah, and vot is that gourd he is carrying?"

"Sand."

"Sand?"

"Yes. Sand."

"You know, I haff never seen Japonese wizards," Viktor said. "I thought that they did not exist."

"Uh... most of us are, like, we're... when Japanese wizards are born, we go to _America_!"

" America?"

"Yeah, America," Temari said. "So legally, we're actually American." Kankurou laughed and choked on sausages. Viktor had a distinct impression she wasn't telling the truth.

"What's up with you, retard?" Temari said, hitting her brother on the back to 'help him un-choke on the sausages'.

"Don't call me retarded," Kankurou said. "But anyway, it's nothing. Your boyfriend's coming over by the way."

It was true. Shikamaru was frowning and quickly leaving the Ravenclaw table to get to Temari's sub-Slytherin table. Tenten and Neji were following closely behind.

"Hey, Temari," Shikamaru said. "We need a place to sit."

"Sure," she replied. "Why?"

"Neji decided he didn't like some guy and went ahead tossing him across the room. Sakura's back there negotiating."

Somewhere in the Great Hall, a pink-haired demon of a woman was shaking a poor boy in the air by the front of the shirt yelling, 'WHO did you say had a big forehead!'

Gaara seemed annoyed, glaring straight at Sakura and the Beauxbatons.

"This is Nara Shikamaru, my boyfriend," Temari introduced. "That's Hyuuga Neji and his girlfriend Tenten—"

Tenten cleared her throat and Temari laughed.

"Excuse me, Tenten and _her_ boyfriend Neji," Temari said. "Guys, this is Viktor Krum."

"Hm, you're that guy at the World Cup," Shikamaru said. Krum frowned. "Good game, you didn't suck." Okay, so her other friends weren't that bad.

"Those darn Beauxbatons…" Tenten muttered darkly. Hitting on _her _Neji!

"If it is any consolation, I was not particularly interesting in a single one of them."

"Oh, okay, then that blond girl used some ancient powerful mind-control technique and forced you to let her untie and comb your hair! You do realize that it's still in two pigtails, don't you? Braids, Neji. _Braids_. You never let _me _do your hair."

Neji hastily pulled out the braids in his hair, combing it out. "I don't hit or fight girls."

"COUGH COUGH Hinata COUGH COUGH," Tenten said, not inconspicuously.

"I don't understand," Viktor said.

"Neji and his cousin Hinata fought in the chuunin exams a while ago and she got beat up bad."

"Oh," Viktor said. Violent.

Temari and Neji shrugged. "They had issues. It's _because_ they were cousins that they fought a lot. Well, Hinata's too shy. Neji's just a big bully."

"Am not."

"You are too, and don't argue," Temari said. "Anyway, the problems been solved, Neji's learned some Bigger Truth or whatever, and now he's gone from 'Kill Hinata' to 'You touch her and I will rip your arms off'. It's a bit ironic."

"Anyway," Tenten said. "The point is that Neji _let_ these girls hit on him!"

"Oh well!" Temari said, shaking food in their faces. "Eat! Drink! Have fun! And shut up!" She laughed cheerfully.

"Oh, that's easy for you, 'Ri," Tenten said. "You and Shikamaru _never_ get into any real fights."

"I believe Shikamaru's term for his current condition would be 'whipped'," Neji said.

"How troublesome..." Shikamaru muttered. He couldn't really argue with that. It was pretty much true.

"No, Shikamaru has just as much freedom as any other guy!" Temari said indignantly. "Right, Shika-kun?"

"Actually—"

"Yeah, you do," Temari said, cutting him off. They laughed, but Gaara stood up abruptly, nearly causing Kankurou to fall out of his seat in surprise.

"I'm leaving."

"Going to the common room already?" Temari asked her brother. "Or visiting Naruto and friends?"

"To the Ravenclaw table." He left, his long jacket flowing smoothly.

"I think I understand vy you called this table the Table of Complete and Uncomvortable Silence," Viktor said. "And your brother is very... abrupt."

"I suppose that's a nicer way of calling him rude," Temari said.

As Gaara headed for the Ravenclaw table, the headmaster finally stood up, after many people had finished eating and staring at the blond girl with flowing long hair, who bore a remarkably similar resemblance to Ino.

"Huh? Oh, hi Gaara," Sakura said, turning around to find the spook standing behind her. She made room for him, glad that she wasn't alone with these strangers.

"Nice eyeliner…" one of them said sarcastically.

"Ah, it's nice to know that some people can tell the difference between make up and natural face marks," Gaara said.

"Excuse me?"

"Gaara's…eyes are naturally like that," Sakura said.

"Ees zis true?"

"Yes. I don't sleep."

"_Never_? Zat ees impossible!"

"Well, Gaara _did_ take a small nap three years ago," Sakura said, remembering Naruto and Sasuke's story of what happened in their fight with Gaara.

"I accidentally fell asleep doing paperwork some time last year too," Gaara added, remembering waking up to hear Kankurou's panicked screams.

"Oh yeah, I heard about that," Sakura said. The Beauxbatons looked speechless. "People everywhere were freaking out with the sand moving and all."

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and—most particularly—_guests_," Dumbledore said, once everyone was done eating. "I have great pleasure in welcoming you all to Hogwarts. I hope and trust that your stay here will be both comfortable and enjoyable."

One of the Beauxbatons girls, still clutching a muffler around her head, gave what was unmistakable a derisive snort.

"Nobody here is forcing you to stay," Gaara said. "If you're so self aggrandizing here, you might as well leave. Anyway, it is very unbecoming of any woman to snort, no matter how poorly raised." The girl look offended and tried to meet Gaara's glare head on, only to look away after a few seconds. ((No one can stand up to Gaara-sama's deathglare! HAhahaha!))

"Now that you have all finished your meals, the tournament will officially be opened. However, I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket and start."

"A _casket_?" Sakura echoed.

"First," Dumbledore said, "this is Mr. Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and Mr. Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports and Jiraiya—just Jiraiya—of the Three Sannins of the East. Mr. Bagman and Mr. Crouch have worked tirelessly over the last few months on the arrangements for the Triwizard Tournament, and they will be joining myself, Professor Karkaroff, and Madame Maxime and Jiraiya-sama on the panel that will judge the champions' efforts."

At the mention of the word 'champions', the attentiveness of the listening students seemed to sharpen. Dumbledore seemed to notice their sudden stillness. He smiled. ("Jiraiya?" a few people repeated. "Never heard of him...")

"The casket, then, if you please, Mr. Filch."

Filch, who had previously been lurking in the far corner of the Hall, now approached Dumbledore carrying a great wooden chest encrusted with jewels. It looked ancient. An excited murmur of interest rose from watching students. Even Shino looked up.

"The instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by Mr. Crouch and Mr. Bagman," Dumbledore said as Filch carefully place the chest on the table. "They have made the necessary arrangements for each challenge. There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways: their magical prowess, their daring, their powers of deduction, and, of course, their ability to cope with danger."

Nobody seemed to be breathing. Gaara frowned. They could die like that.

"If we were considered adults here, then we'd have this game in the bag," Gaara muttered to Sakura under his breath.

Sakura sighed. A bit rude, but true. Perhaps they weren't particularly outstanding in some areas of magic, but they, as shinobi, had faced dangers and survived with luck, knowledge, reason, courage, and skill. "Well, we aren't," Sakura said. "Anyway, it's not our job do compete in a tournament. We just have to keep an eye on things."

"As you know, three champions compete in the tournament," Dumbledore said. "One from each of the participated schools. They will be marked on how well they perform each of the Tournament tasks and the champion with the highest total after task three will probably win the Triwizard Cup. The champions will be chosen by an impartial selector: the Goblet of Fire."

Dumbledore now took out his wand and tapped the casket three times. The lid slowly creaked upon and removed a roughly built cup of wood. It would have been really boring if it hadn't been full of dancing blue-white flames.

Dumbledore closed the casket and placed the goblet on top of the lid.

"Anyone who wishes to submit themselves as champion must clearly write their name and school _clearly_ on a slip pf parchment and drop it into the goblet," he said. "Aspiring champions have twenty-four hours to enter their names. Tomorrow, the goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to represent their schools. The goblet will be placed in the entrance hall tonight, where it will be freely accessible to all those who wish to compete.

"To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation, I will draw an Age Line around the Goblet of Fire. Nobody under seventeen will be able to cross the line.

"Finally, I wish to advise you not to take this tournament lightly. Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obliged to see the tournament through to the end. The placing of your name in the goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract. There can be no change of heart once you have become a champion. Please be very sure, however, that you are wholeheartedly prepared to play before you drop your name into the goblet. Now, I think it is time for bed. Good night to you all."

Gaara and Sakura stood up at the table as the other foreign students began to leave.

"'Night, Gaara," Sakura said.

"..." Well, it would be rude to brush her off. "Good night," he replied.

"Back to the ship then," Karkaroff said, now at the Slytherin tables. "Viktor, how are you feeling? Did you eat enough? Should I send for some mulled wine from the kitchens?"

Viktor shook his head. The moment Karkaroff turned around, Temari made a bark of laughter.

"Are you tired? Should I give you foot massage? Would you like for me to kiss your butt?" Temari asked him as well, imitating Karkaroff's voice. Viktor choked on his pumpkin juice, only to be immediately coaxed by the headmaster once again.

"Professor," one of Viktor's companions said hopefully. "_I_ vood like some vine."

"I wasn't offering it to _you_, Poliakoff," Karkaroff said, losing his warmly paternal air. "I notice you have dribbled food all down the front of your robes again, disgusting boy." He turned and led his students towards the doors. Kankurou pat the kid on his back sympathetically with an overly solemn face, hiding his laughter.

"That was cold," Kankurou said to the disheartened boy and the embarrassed, world-famous Quidditch player. "Well, I'm full, and I don't think the house-elves are sending anymore hamburgers," he said, standing up as many others began to leave. "I'm off."

"Me too," Temari said. One by one, each of them got up and began to leave, along with almost everyone in the Great Hall. The doors were wide, but there still had to be a line for everyone to exit without shoving another over, which was what Kankurou did, therefore he was actually one of the first to leave. The students left the Great Hall, and Harry paused to let Karkaroff leave through the door first.

"Thank you," he said merely glancing at Harry. And then Karkaroff froze. He turned his head back to Harry and stared at him as though he couldn't believe his eyes. Behind their headmaster, the students from Durmstrang came to a halt too. Karkaroff's eyes moved slowly up Harry's face and fixed themselves upon his scar. His students stared curiously at Harry too.

"Yeah, that's Harry Potter," a voice growled from behind. Professor Karkaroff spun around to find Professor Moody was standing there, leaning heavily on his staff. His magical eye was fixed upon Durmstrang's headmaster like how Karkaroff's eyes were on Harry.

"You!" Karkaroff said, staring at Moody as if he wasn't sure it was really him standing here. The color had drained from his face, a terrible look of mingled fury and fear washing over it.

"Me!" Moody said with false enthusiasm. "And unless you've got something to say to Potter, Karkaroff, you might want to move. You're blocking the doorway."

It was true; half the students in the Hall were not waiting behind them, looking over one another's shoulders to see what was causing the holdup. Without another word, Professor Karkaroff swept his students away with him. Moody watching him until he was out of sigh. His magical eye was fixed upon his back with a look of intense dislike upon his mutilated face.

* * *

(1) I'm not sure if it's spelled right, but a 'lot' is like... think spaces in a parking lot. You buy 'spaces' for you to stick a coffin in. Like a parking spot! 

(2) I thought electrical devices didn't work at Hogwarts...?

* * *

**My Thinking Corner**

I tried to keep the things they say as close to the book as possible without completely changing it... Did it work?

Anyway, I have decided that if Sai even ever shows up in this fic at all, then it will be later, as a reviewer suggested, because 1) there are too many characters already that I am preparing to get rid of and 2) I don't know anything about Sai except he has a little brother who is 'dead' and that he has no emotions. And that's not much. Oh, and as for the questions that have been answered: no, Harry will not be jinchuuriki. Naruto won't have an ultimate defense, but a few pretty cool new techniques I thought about in my head with your help. I also forgot to mention earlier: the sphere ball things that Maruko was tossing around that turned into other objects. Those are going to be sold as "Makoto Camping and Equipment Carriers". I got that idea after someone joking and talking about a portapotty. Literally. You toss a ball, and it'll turn to whatever the Makoto's managed to squeeze inside it using jutsu and magic. When I imagine it, it's like throwing firecrackers that instead of just going up in smoke, turn to something else.

Okay, what does shannaro mean? I've seen it said several times when Sakura hit something particularly hard, but what does it mean exactly?

Has Neji mastered his doujutsu and changed his sight from 359 to 360? **EDITTED: NO LONGER NEEDED **

What level should Sasuke's sharingan be? And is the next 'phase' of the sharingan always unique to the user or does it just matter whether you kill a friend or not? **EDITTED: NO LONGER NEEDED **

Oh, and you know, I look in the book and realize that I was spelling Gryffindor wrong the whole time...It's Gryffindor, not 'Griffindor', and I'm like... Oops. And now that I think about it, the pyramid-shaped necklace used as Portkey is described the same way the 'Millenium Item' in Yugioh would be... but it's different. Hard to describe, but different.  
Anyone who can guess what Naruto's planning on doing with the face paint is a genius like me! The two clues are the colors: dark black and pasty white. Also, what he's planning also has to do with one of Fred and George's products... Hehehehe...


	17. Chapter 17

A response to my biggest review yet. This one is a special review. It gets to be at the top. Why? Because it asks many questions that I don't want repeated, alright, people? (to somebody's sister: you're not that special! j/k dun't flame meh)) I have added numbers and boldened the questions and things I'd like to point out and separated parts of it. **_IF YOU HAVE NO QUESTIONS OR INTEREST IN READING THE ANSWERS, FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS, AS YOU WILL PROBABLY GET A HEADACHE LIKE MINE FROM READING IT._**

**(1) What are they? The Makoto's made two?**  
_(1) That's a secret and I'm not telling! You'll see for yourself soon enough. Anyway, Kankurou now has six puppets in all. Three were broken by Sasori, but they had been fixed. And he still had the fourth one, which Kishimoto has not shown us yet so I'm making it up. And now the Makoto's give him two more. So, in total, he has six. Whether he can use them all well at the same time or not, I'm not sure. I haven't decided.  
_**(2) Is Neji scared of spiders?  
**_(2) Scared? No... not REALLY scared, but he REALLY doesn't like them. _  
**(3) What happened to Madoka? Did Voldie kill her?-!**  
_(3) She's alive and well, thank you very much. It's Voldemort you should be scared for. And someone else._  
**(4) Are Neji and Tenten going to have more problems?  
**_(4) You'll see..._  
**(5) When are Sevvie-poo and Anko getting together?  
**_(5) Uh...well, um, you see... I guess they will get together but... yeah. Sure. No comment.  
_**(6) How old is Snape? **  
_(6) I just checked on a website with an interview of it. About 35 or 36. He does look kinda old in the movie though, doesn't he?  
_**(7) Is Viktor going to be a main character too? And Fleur? And Cedric?  
**_(7) I'm trying to give them a little extra time in the fic_.  
**(8) This is the ninth of October, right?  
**_(8) Right._**  
(9) When are GAARA AND SAKURAgetting together?  
**_(9) Someday.  
_**(10) In your profile, you said your sn's Yarochisai, right? How come you're always away?  
**(_10) Yes. And because I am. If you IM me, I'll just get back to you later._**  
**-  
**(1) MINOLTA copied your work in THE TWO HALFS**!  
(1) She's changing it right now. Or he. So whatever. And you're not the only person to tell me this, but thanks anyway.

* * *

Chapter 17: "THIS SUCKS!"  
_Demagikified..._

((I'm reading your reviews, I'm typing...all of a sudden "OH SHIT YOU GUYS! NOW LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO, I'M OUT OF HIATUS!" you people and your stupidly awesome reviews... You tricked me into typing again! T-T I love you all anyway.))

(Remember, '_Other language_', 'English', --strike out--)

It was some time past midnight when Yaksa returned to Gaara carrying several messages. It had come from the Sand, made a side trip to Hogsmeade, and made its last stop at Hogwarts. Mikoto was sleeping somewhere, still as a parrot, although her sister had decided to stay the night at Hogsmeade. He lost Mikoto somewhere in the room. He tied a hood over her head like a falconer would, and left her like that. She was so much quieter when her head was tied up.

The first letter he opened was from Mariku in Hogsmeade.

_Gaara(kichi!)_

_I found an incredible place with an incredible guy who'd sell me a really good building for only two hundred Galleons! I can't tell if it's good or not, though. It looks really creepy and is next to some Shrieking Shack and is close to a Zonko's, a really interesting place, by the way. I like it. I'll start fixing it up tomorrow with You-Know-Who. And since no one knows his name, what on earth are we calling him? I talked to Mikoto earlier. We're arguing between the two names 'Slave-boy' and 'Batman'. Normally, we have less of a problem voting, with three siblings, but 'Ruko's busy and can't really vote, being in another country or world or whatever. It's a bit hard for two people to compete and vote for something when they're the only two people. Kurogane refuses to choose either one. He says both names are completely demeaning, but I think he's just being nice and not saying 'Koto's name is totally inferior to mine. Don't you like 'Slave-boy'? Anyway, please tell us which name is better (I KNOW you'll make the right decision, (hint hint, wink wink)). Also, Permission to borrow two hundred Galleons, sir?_

_Your butt-servant's older sister,  
Makoto M._

_PS: I'll pay you back for everything in twenty years. Wish me luck. _

Gaara sighed. Something poked his ankle. He ignored it.

_Permission --not-- granted._ (Gaara hesitantly crossed out the not) _And both names are absolutely ridiculous. I refuse to choose either and subject your translator to such verbal abuse. (_Gaara frowned.) _I'm sure your new friend will particularly enjoy something along the lines of 'Loser' . _

The next was from Tsunade. It was a short message attached to a leather bag. Gaara opened the envelope and read the letter, curious.

_Hey kid_, (Tsunade wrote. '...Kid?')

_There were several disappearances in the Sand earlier today when you left. Three of them actually. Two of them are your own people, and the third is Jiraiya. I'm sure Jiraiya is probably somewhere over here, lurking near the hot springs, but will you please keep an eye out in case you see him? Thanks. I am also withdrawing my offer to send Yamato and Sai to Hogwarts, as our current short-term goal is to spread our forces, rather then group them all at Hogwarts in one place. I am also asking you to hand choose whichever shinobi to send out to the rest of the world or back home. Of course, if you dislike the extra work, you can always assign an underling to do it for you, if you catch my drift. You may send them after you have done whatever you are all planning for the Tenth._

_- Tsunade _

_Also, I'd like to wish Naruto an early happy birthday. Please give him this package as a birthday gift. _

Gaara frowned. Okay, apparently, Jiraiya _didn't_ have permission to go AWOL. Not that anyone really believed the old man's lies. Something poked the back of his leg.

_Hokage-sama,_

_You need not worry about Jiraiya's current whereabouts. He is currently staying at Hogwarts, a judge of the Triwizard Tournament as a representative of the Eastern Magics. To tell you the truth, I do not know what the others are planning for the festival at all. I think that it's more of a small get-together than a party or a festival. Sakura had mentioned something earlier today, about how 'house-elves' were getting overworked and deserved a break. Therefore, we are probably just going to do nothing but sit and stare at each other. Not that it's completely boring...some people may find things like that interesting. One never knows, after all. _(1)_ I'll send a few shinobi out after the Tenth. And it's Naruto's birthday? I do think that's a better reason to have a party, rather than some ridiculous festival. I will give Naruto the bag tomorrow. And don't worry, I won't sign my name on it as well without permission._

-Sabaku Gaara  
_Happy Tenth, I suppose._

He opened another letter.

_Kazekage-sama,_

_I was shocked to hear that you had actually promoted that Uzumaki boy to the chuunin level. I do respect your judgment, authority, and power, but I, however, do not agree to this recent turn of events. Uzumaki Naruto? A chuunin? This is a very dangerous road you are choosing, Kazekage-sama. Giving Jinchuuriki more power than necessary does not seem to be the wisest thing to do. I would sleep much more soundly at night with that Jinchuuriki as low a rank as possible. I do not mean this as an attack upon you. You have less control over your own demon, I'm sad to say, but this boy has a demon inside of him that is infinitely more dangerous than even yours, Shukaku the Ichibi._

_With respect,  
Kirisawa Fuji _

Gaara frowned. Naruto? A Jinchuuriki? Naruto...was a demon. It just didn't seem right. He was much too cheerful for something like that. But...

To anyone not Gaara, they would've been at least slightly shocked at this recent turn of events. But this was Gaara. The only time _he_ was ever shocked was when he was injured in battle. And when that happens, _everybody_ is shocked. It had been three years since the first time he had been struck, and he still wasn't used to the fact that his 'absolute defense' was no longer considered absolute. But that wasn't the point.

Gaara was just mildly surprised and irked that Naruto had never told him before. Then again, there was some kind of law against that in Konoha, wasn't there? He knew that there was a strict taboo against speaking of the demon and it's strange death. Or disappearance. He always found that suspicious of Konoha, despite its usual carefree reign by 'kind' kages.

Finally, something jabbed him sharply in the foot. It didn't hurt, but this constant prodding was really annoying. So whatever it was that was poking him, he kicked it aside and heard a muffled squawk.

"..." Gaara sweatdropped... He then realized what the thing poking him was.

Looking at the floor, his suspicions were affirmed when he found a parrot twitching on its side with a hood on its head. Uh...oops. Gaara scooped up the bird and removed the leather hood from its head.

Poof!

Mikoto was now squatting in front of him clutching her head.

"_You _kicked _me_!" she whined in Japanese.

"_You were poking me_," Gaara replied, as 'I-don't-give-a-shit'ly as he could make it.

"_And that gives you an excuse to send me flying across the room?_"

"_Yes_," Gaara said mildly. "_It does in my world._"

"_Well we already left your world. This is not Sunagakure!_" she said. "_This hurts my heart, Gaarakichi._"

"_It's when you talk like that that I'm sure you're fine_," Gaara retorted. "_Anyway, I didn't kick you _that _hard._"

"_I was a bird. That _was _hard,_" she said. "_I could've died like that you know._"

"_Yet you don't seem even remotely worried,_" the Kazekage mused.

"_What's that_?" she asked, pointing at the stack of letters.

"_It's nothing,_" Gaara said, quickly putting away Fuji's letter. "_Just paperwork_."

"_You're replacing me? How could you_?" she cried. Gaara winced. He was impressed that the Silencing Charm could block Mikoto's shriek from his fellow male Slytherin shinobi's ears. But it withheld, and Gaara was, once again, a bit impressed by this strange magic (2).

"_You know nothing of magic, so you can't do this work. Essays on potions and other magical... things,_" Gaara said. He rummaged in his pockets and held out several pieces of gold out in front of her face.

Ooh, shiny! Mikoto reached out for it, a natural instinct for someone related to a merchant as obsessed as Maruko.

"_No_," Gaara said firmly. "_I tell you what, I give you two hundred Galleons to give to your sister and an extra forty Galleons to buy something. If you don't spend it by the end of tonight, I'm taking it back._"

Mikoto stared at him expectantly for a moment.

"_Naruto's birthday is tomorrow. Buy him as many gifts as you can._" Gaara took a bag from his drawers and cast an enlargement spell on the inside and a featherweight spell. And get what you want with the change." Mikoto saluted.

"_A mission! Aye-aye captain!_" she said. With a poof, she became a parrot again and jumped out the window with the bag of Galleons in one talon. Gaara frowned. She might be a parrot, but she didn't know how to fly...

Oh well.

* * *

The next day was Saturday. On weekends, students had no classes and were thus allowed to sleep in, but Harry was roughly shaken awake. 

"Harry, wake up," a voice whispered. "Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup."

"Go 'way," he muttered, pressing his face into the pillow, swatting at whoever was shaking him. And then...something bit him.

"Aargh!" Harry jerked awake and pried a fox off his leg, glaring at a blond he figured to be Naruto.

"You're not too scary when you glare at people without your glasses," Naruto said wryly. "You can't really see where you're glaring at, right? Then again, you're not too scary when you're wearing your glasses either..."

Harry grabbed his glasses from the nightstand next to him and proceeded to glare at Naruto and the blonde's fox. "What do you want?" he asked Naruto, glancing past him to look at the clock.

"We've got a special surprise for you today!" Naruto said with a grin. There was an excited gleam in his eyes. Harry wasn't sure whether to be excited himself, or frightened. He glanced past Naruto to look at the clock. ...THREE THIRTY IN THE MORNING! Harry fell over when he saw the time.

"Why so early?" he groaned with a yawn.

"We actually planned to do this a bit before midnight," Naruto replied, "but we forgot." Harry sighed. "Hurry up and get ready," Naruto said. "Everyone's waiting for you."

"Everyone as in _everyone_?" Harry said.

"Well, no not really. The teachers are still busy making plans behind our backs, I think, and a few of us are busy doing something else," Naruto said vaguely. "I'm not sure what though. Gaara's not telling me, but I think he told Sakura... Gotta ask one of them later."

Harry quickly washed his face and shrugged on a T-shirt and normal pants, as the other shinobi strongly discouraged wearing school robes when they were training. Naruto lead Harry past Hagrid's hut. Harry stopped dead in front of the Forbidden Forest.

"Come on," Naruto said.

"We're going in _there_?" Harry asked.

"Oh, don't worry, Dumbledore gave us special permission," Naruto said. "And actually, that's the only place all of us can really train."

"_All_ of you?"

"That's what I said," Naruto said. "Oh, and don't worry about the locals. We're perfectly...er, _relatively_ safe there."

"...Okay," Harry said hesitantly, almost hoping that Hagrid would suddenly wake up and see Naruto carting him off into the Forbidden Forest. It wasn't a short walk, but it didn't take to long to reach their destination. Harry had gotten fast enough to keep up with the other shinobi when they weren't running at full speed.

The other shinobi mumbled a dead-ish greeting. Apparently, Harry wasn't the only one not used to waking up so early. Harry looked around. There were new faces. And one whose face could not be seen. Shino, Sakura, Hinata, Ino, a strange Asian guy in tights like Lee's, Shikamaru, Temari, Kankurou, and Tenten were also there, in addition to Harry's normal slave-driving trainers (Neji, Sasuke, and Lee), although Lee was missing. Strange...

"Hi, Harry," Sakura said in an orderly fashion, with her hair tied back neatly into a half ponytail (as it was not long enough to do anything else with). "I trust that Naruto didn't explain anything to you?"

"He said it's a surprise," Harry said.

"Good. I didn't want him explaining anything to you," she said, clicking a pen, ready to write in a normal notebook, rather than inking a quill and pulling out a long roll of parchment. (3) "We are going to try something new. You are already pretty good for a normal wizard and muggle, even with the short amount of training. You have no style, but that's to be expected, with you constantly shifting between fighting Neji, Lee, and Sasuke."

"ONCE WE ARE DONE WITH YOU, YOU WILL ACHIEVE THE HAPPINESS OF A TRUE YOUTH!" the new Asian guy said, sounding startlingly familiar...

"Who's that?" Harry whispered to Ino, having a sneaking suspicion that he knew this guy. But it couldn't be...

"It's Lee," she whispered back, an air of pride in her voice, confirming Harry's suspicions. "Makeover. He hasn't noticed yet. And he calls himself a ninja!"

"Anyway," Tenten interrupted, "there are a few things that we need to say before we forget. First of all, this is our new training ground, since my weapons have now been banned from school grounds. There's also the fact that with the other schools so close, we can't afford to train so publicly anymore. It might raise some suspicion among others."

"Neji and Hinata are our 'chakra specialist', you could say," Sakura said. "But Neji is not one for explanations, and Hinata is not one for long speeches, so I condensed it down myself to explain to you what we are doing today. Yes, by the way, we have received special permission from Dumbledore to train here, but that's not what we're doing here today. Today, we are testing you."

"A...test?" Harry said hesitantly, not sure he was ready to take any type of exam, comparing his own current abilities to what he had been shown by Sasuke, Neji, and Lee.

"In other words," Kiba said, "We're experimenting on you."

"Experimenting on me?" Harry repeated loudly, without any bit of hesitation left. No way! He wasn't subjecting himself to ANY experiment with these people!

"Yes," Sakura said. "You could put it that we're experimenting on you. From what I hear from Neji, Sasuke, and Lee, you really suck at fighting."

"...Gee. Thanks."

"I don't mean it in a rude way, she said, dismissing Harry's sullenness. "But you're someone at a major disadvantage to those who use chakra. They can probably kill you without breaking a sweat and beat you up without a second thought. You're slow, you have a bad defense, and no experience in battle. You can't help it though. You have no chakra control at all, ignoring the three holes in your hands. And since you're slow, those with speed like Lee's can get past any defense you put up, no matter how impressive they may be, although I hadn't heard anything impressive about you in a while. And experience? You'll get that by sparring with us."

"Question!" Harry interrupted, raising a hand. "What do you mean by the holes in my hands?"

"That's what I'm here to explain to you," Sakura said. She flipped back a few more pages in her book and showed him a detailed diagram of a person. It looked like she had stolen if from the infirmary... "This," she said, pointing at it with her pen, "is the human body." She sat down tailor-style and took out a pencil from her pocket instead, and she motioned for him to sit down, tracing a few lines drawn onto the sheet a little bit darker. "You see these lines? They're all over inside of you. Those are the chakra pathways that control the, well, path of the chakra. On the average shinobi's body, there are three hundred sixty-one of these dots. See? I drew them in. Now, Hyugas—no, wait, just Neji has the ability to use all 361 chakra holes, also sometimes called chakra pores. Now, I'm not sure whether all Hyugas can do this or not, since their clan secrets are secrets – or else they wouldn't be secrets, you know? According to Shikamaru, several these points are actually known to Muggles as pressure points, used for acupuncture. Not many, but some. It might just be a coincidence.

"Now, shinobi are able to use chakra—your 'magical energy'—because these three hundred and sixty one holes are 'open'. Civilians, we suspect, can't use them at all. Oh, and, by the way, our 'civilians' in our world are the equivalent to 'muggles' in your world. Muggles and civilians don't have any chakra holes. Well, okay, all living beings have them, but theirs are considered 'clogged'. Wizards have three hundred and fifty eight clogged holes _in general_. Some of the stronger ones have a pore in their head, for silent spells, I suspect. Some wizards manage to open the fourth pore, with determination, persistence, and talent. Now, what little holes you do have are located in your wand arm. One in your palm, one in your ulna, and one in your scapula."

"...My whats?"

"Your palm, your forearm, and your shoulder blade," Sakura said, dropping the medical terminology. "Now, what we're planning on doing is completely obstructing your chakra holes. Oh, and when I say that people have clogged pores, they're not completely blocked. It's like someone stuffed pieces of tissue into them, only the chakra leaks out. When we completely clog up your chakra points, you will be unable to use magic—"

"What?-!"

"Yes, Harry, no magic for you," Sakura said. "Not for the next eighteen hours anyway."

"I can't go a day without magic!" Harry said. "I'll be slaughtered! You've seen what it's like with all the Slytherins and me. The moment they realize I can't use magic, I'm a dead wizard!"

"Which is why you won't get _caught_ without magic," Sakura said. "We'll have you under constant surveillance throughout the day. Also, a warning in advance: in the first six hours, everything will be normal. Aside from not being able to use magic. And then, for the next six hours, you will experience a brief moment of pain every two point zero one seconds. You may feel a tiny prick, as if someone is poking you with a toothpick, or something a bit more painful, like stabbing you with a kunai. Nothing too bad. And for the final six hours, when the pores are completely opening, you will experience a more painful sensation. It's _really_ not pleasant, but I suppose it's not the worst thing you could go through." (4)

"Another question," Harry said nervously, "what is it you're going to do to block my, er, 'chakura'?"

"If 'chakra' sounds strange on your tongue, just stick with 'magic'. We think they're the same thing anyway," Sakura said. "That's what Neji and Hinata are here for. They're our chakra specialists here. They'll be using their Juken technique to seal your magic. Normally, the effects of their technique only will only last a few hours, but we're also casting a preservation spell on you afterward, to prolong the effects. This is all experiment, just so you know. This is the first time known in history that chakra-powered jutsus and magic-powered spells will ever be combined. We don't count because we have had more advanced...training prior to arriving at Hogwarts. While we just have to learn a few more menial but useful tricks, you are learning something more a bit more advanced. We go down, you do up, you could say. You have every right to refuse. After all, _everything_ I explained just now is _completely_ theoretical." ((hint hint, something's not right, people))

"Well, before I say anything," Harry said, "there's one last question. Why am I even doing this?"

"If you succeed in opening all three hundred sixty-one chakra holes, you will proceed the next level, from basic taijutsu to perhaps more complex taijutsu, basic genjutsu, and perhaps basic ninjutsu as well," Sakura said. "Not only that, but it would be easier for you to grasp complicated magical concepts in this world. For instance, you would learn magic as fast as Hermione Granger, if not faster. With more refined control, you may even learn it in moments as we do."

"You can learn it quickly?" he asked. "How come you never do it all fast in class then?"

"You said no more questions," the healer-nin said with a smile. "Anyway, only a few of us choose to show all of our talents. It's not good to wear our abilities on our sleeves. Also, some of us don't have enough control to learn it so quickly." All eyes were on Naruto.

"What?"

They laughed. It was four thirty in the morning now. "Are you ready?" she asked. Neji and Hinata were both on either side of Harry before he could blink.

"Yeah," he said. "I can do it."

Although Sakura and Shikamaru were the only one taking notes, all the other shinobi watched, standing around them in a circle to help Sakura keep a record of Harry's reaction to the magic blockage, whether the results were positive or negative.

Sakura nodded, and, all of a sudden Harry was assaulted by a barrage of pain, as if a thousand rocks being pelted at him. Fast rocks, flying at the speed of a baseball thrown by a professional pitcher. Charged by a strange, electrical sensation. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that he was getting beaten to death by tasers. The rain of attacks stopped as suddenly as it began.

Dazed, Harry staggered to the right, to be supported by Kiba, who grinned at him, showing off canines. All of a sudden, Harry was on the ground, looking up at everyone. That was weird. A giant dog licked his face. Harry made a face and pushed it away.

"Ah ha! He lives!" Ino said.

"I was dead?-!" Harry shouted.

"No, no, you just passed out," Kiba assured the Boy-Who-Didn't-Die. "And we just freaked out when you wouldn't wake up."

"I feel funny," Harry said.

Sakura leaned in front of him. "What are you feeling?" she asked him. "Nauseous? Dizzy? Bruised?"

"All of the above," he said. "Plus... I'm _tingly_."

"I'll heal the bruises, but I can't do anything about the other side-effects," she said, after recording his responses.

"You're a healer?"

"I'm apprenticed to the best of them," she said. She held a glowing green hand over him. Harry was nervous. After Lockhart, he would have preferred it if Pomfrey was the only one who ever healed him for the rest of his life. No sense in risking the existence of his bones again. But a strange warmth passed over his body and, all of sudden, the pain faded away.

"Why didn't you do this before?" Harry asked them as he was helped up to his feet. Still a bit lightheaded, but it wasn't as bad as he felt moments ago.

"We planned to do this as soon as we thought of it," Shikamaru explained, "Which was a little bit after the feast yesterday. The sooner you do it, as in later in the day, the less likely it would have been that your state of magiclessness ((that's a word now...)) would be found out. But then we forgot.

"Oh, and while you were out cold, Gaara came," Sakura said.. Harry looked pass Sakura and saw Gaara standing off to the side of the group with Neji and Sasuke.

"I was in Hogsmeade," he said.

"You have two choices now. You can hang around the school, risking exposure of your current condition to your classmates and the Slytherins, or you can go to a new shop in Hogsmeade, risking possible death and maiming."

"The shop belongs to a few of my subordinates," Gaara said.

"I'd rather go to Hogsmeade," Harry said, "But I don't think this is a Hogsmeade weekend."

"I got special permission from Dumbledore," Gaara said. "You can spend the rest of the day with my...my friends." Kankurou and Temari coughed, choking back laughter.

"What?" Harry asked his siblings.

"You...really need to meet this friend of his. The small one," Kankurou said. "It... it's kinda freaky, actually."

"Are your friends dangerous?"

"The things they do are more dangerous than they are," Gaara said vaguely.

Hm, face Slytherins or Gaara's friends... It was a difficult choice. "I think I'll stay with your friends," Harry said.

"Okay," Sakura said. "You'll probably be able to use your magic again by this evening, so once you stop feeling the pricks, you can come back to Hogwarts.

"Alright," Harry said.

"You know what?" Naruto said suddenly. "I just had a thought... we could send our 'prisoner' to take Harry's place."

Sakura, Temari, Shikamaru, and Gaara frowned, thinking about it, and they (most of them anyway) laughed. The others didn't quite get it.

"Naruto kind of tricked some guy, our 'prisoner', into taking Gaara's place," Temari said with a smile.

"...I still don't get it," Harry said. Kankurou froze.

"Oooh!" he exclaimed. "God, I feel sorry for that guy," he said, laughing. A few of the other shinobi laughed, although some didn't get it.

"Gaara doesn't sleep," Shikamaru explained to the oblivious (Harry, Chouji, Lee, Neji, and Sasuke). "Meaning our prisoner had had to stay awake for several days without sleep.

_Ooooooooh!_ ((NOW they get it!))

"Alright, so you can't tell Ron or Hermione that you can't use magic," Ino reminded them. "Naruto can replace you for a while. It's easiest for him."

"You can tell your friends you don't have magic, but I wouldn't advise it," Tenten added.

"We'll be training you here every day at this time on Saturday mornings unless there is a dire need to reschedule," Sasuke said. "At this time. At three in the morning. It's just too early to go like that every week."

"What time is it now?" Harry asked.

"About six forty-five," Kiba said.

"What happened for the last two hours?-!" Harry said in disbelief.

"Okay, the first hour after you passed out was spent freaking out because you weren't moving and checking if you were alive. The second was spent freaking out that you were alive but not waking up," Ino said sheepishly. "But you're alive and relatively fine now, and that's what counts, right? ...Right?"

"Right," Sasuke said firmly. Ino grinned at him. It would have been funnier to Harry if he wasn't the one who had been unconscious.

* * *

Naruto enviously watched his Kage Bunshin talking with the other shinobi. He was stuck playing 'I'm-Harry-Potter!' with the guy's blissfully oblivious friends, Hermione and Ron, while his Kage Bunshin hung out with Sakura and the others... Well, _one_ of them was completely oblivious. Hermione, on the other hand, was almost immediately suspicious. Not that Naruto was one to notice. 

After the particular experiment in the Forbidden Forest, Naruto went straight to the Great Hall for some breakfast. Imagine, waking up at three in the morning, staying awake for hours, and THEN eating! Naruto was just starving!

Of course, the moment he began to eat, he caught the suspicious eye of Hermione.

"What?" Naruto asked, slurping up his noodles at the same time.

"You're eating ramen," she said. "This early in the morning."

"...Yeah? So what?" Naruto asked. Oh wait... Harry ate a normal breakfast. Oh, screw it. "I feel like eating some of that stuff Naruto eats. Looks good and I never ate anything like this." Naruto continued to eat as if it was normal. Hermione exchanged a glance with Ron, who didn't understand this strange change in their friend.

"Let's look at the circle!" Naruto said excitedly, finishing three more bowls in as many minutes.

Ron went with his 'friend' and Hermione followed suspiciously behind. They weren't the only ones hanging around in the entrance hall. Other students, with a piece of toast in their mouth, inspected the Goblet of Fire curiously.

"We've done it!" Fred (or George) said excitedly, running up to their younger brother and his friends.

"Done what?" Ron asked.

"Taken the Age Potion, dung brains," the other twin said excitedly.

"Just a drop each..."

"We only want to age..."

"A few more weeks..." The first twin pulled out a slip of paper. _Fred Weasley, Hogwarts_. The other pulled out another slip with his name on it, _George Weasley, Hogwarts_.

'I have a bad feeling about this...' Naruto said. His prankster senses were going off, and someone was going to get caught. In this case, _two_ someones.

Other students passed by the circle in the Great Hall with curiosity as the two Weasley twins headed for the Goblet of Fire to enter their names in the tournament. Fred and George passed the Age Line and stuck their names in the fire when...

Nothing happened.

'I guess I was wrong,' Naruto thought. 'I guess nothing happened after all.'

But Naruto's thoughts came to an abrupt end when there was a sizzling sound and a sudden explosion and the two Weasleys were blown out of the Age Line. Everyone gasped when they landed ten yards out of the circle. And...

Pop!

They were old people!

Naruto stared at them, as did everyone else in the Great Hall. He smiled. He began to laugh at their expense, as did the others. Fred and George started arguing about who screwed up the potion and Hogwarts had two old people wrestling with each other on its hands.

"I told you it wouldn't work," Dumbledore said, an amused look in his eyes.

"You're twinkling, sir," Ino commented.

"Right. You two ought to go back to the infirmary where Miss Fawcett and Mister Pucey are. They tried an Age Potion, the same as you, but neither have such fine a beard as yours."

The crowd began to disperse. "Honestly," Naruto said to Ron and Hermione. "I don't know why they'd do something like that in front of everyone. If I was going to enter myself, I'd make sure no one was watching. I wouldn't want that cup to spit me out like it did your brothers."

"Well, Harry, you certainly gave that a lot of thought," Hermione said looking at Naruto. Ron was looking at him funny as well.

"Nah," Naruto said, shrugging his shoulders. "I just thought of that right now. It doesn't take a lot of planning to know that you wouldn't want to be tossed out of a circle when you watch two others try it."

"Uh huh," Hermione said. "We should get to work on our homework," Hermione said. "Let's go to the library."

Naruto was unable to say anything for a moment. "W-Wha-What?" he sputtered.

"To the library!" Hermione said enthusiastically, dragging them all away with amazing strength. 'What was it with smart girls and super-strength?' Naruto wondered as she pulled him and Ron away.

* * *

Harry was speechless. A torrent of questions ran through his mind. When did this shop get here? What were those strange powders in the window? What did those runes say? Or were they just Japanese characters? 

But most importantly... WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT THING?-!

A girl ran up to him speaking rapidly in another language. She had red hair, a thick shade of eyeliner, green eyes, and a remarkable/freakish similarity to... Sabaku Gaara.

_This_ was his friend?-!

A lean blond young man came out of the back room wearing a pink apron with his hair tied back. He grinned at Harry. "Irakshaimase (5)," he said in a very feminine voice. ...IT WAS A WOMAN! Harry stumbled and the smaller girl laughed at him. Embarrassed, he readjusted his glasses.

"Er...hi," he said nervously. He hoped...he hoped they spoke English.

"_Nani_?"

Why was it that everything he hoped for never came true?-!

"Um...I..." He pointed at himself. "...Am...Harry...Potter..."

The girls stared at him strangely. And then the older, boyish looking one made an excited cry. "_Watashi...wa...Makoto Mariku_!"

Harry pointed at the older one. "Makoto?"

"_Hai. Makoto Mariku._"

The younger girl added something rapidly.

"Er..."

"Nn... _Atashi...Wa...Makoto... Mikoto_."

They both had the same first name? Wait...no, he remembered that they said their names backwards in Japan. Or wherever these people came from. He pointed at the tall blond. "Mariku."

"_Hai_!"

He pointed at the short redhead. "Mikoto."

The girl wrinkled a nose at the sound of her name distastefully, seeming to regret giving him her name. "..._Hai_!"

None of them said anything for a moment. Now what?

"_Ano_... _Watakushi wa shinobi no Sunagakure desu_," Mariku said. "_Wakarimasu ka_?" (7) Harry stared at them, horrified by what was to come.

"..." This was going to be a very long day.

* * *

Gaara was with Sakura and Hinata in the infirmary. There was never really anything to do during weekends. There was no work. Gaara had already finished all assignments he had been absent for at night. It didn't take long, as classes here were almost ridiculously easy, even for someone like Naruto. He had planned to give Sakura the dress this day, but no. She _insisted _that she was needed to help cure those idiots who got themselves stuck in the infirmary. It was their fault they were mauled by skrewts anyway. Careless idiots. Anyway, with the amount to strange little old people hanging around in the infirmary, he didn't have enough time to give her the box without anyone looking. 

Whenever Madam Pomfrey went in the room, Gaara would look away or pretend to pick up a fallen object on the ground behind a bed. Fred and George watched this curiously.

"...Are you _hiding_ from the _nurse_?" one of them asked. Gaara looked at this sheet. This one was George. He hated twins. Why did they have to look alike?

"I don't hide," Gaara said.

"Of course not," Fred said. "You _cower_."

He had the sudden urge to kill them, but he had Sakura's box in his sand. If he crushed them, he'll get the dress dirty.

"You know, Gaara," Sakura said, helping Madam Pomfrey clean up the room, "You don't have to be here."

"Neither do you," he shot back.

"Why are both of you here?"

"Aah!" Sakura jumped at the sound of Asuma's voice. Where'd he come from?

"Asuma, according to the log, you were supposed to have left the infirmary days ago."

"Well according to Trelawney, I'm going to die of lung cancer. I'm not taking any chances, Missy," Asuma said, still puffing on a cigarrete. He paused, realizing his contradictory actions and frowned, putting the cigarette out on his nightstand. Gaara and Sakura stared at him for a moment. Asuma squirmed uncomfortably. And then he gave up, pulled another one out, and lit it up.

"So what've you kids been up to lately?" Asuma asked them.

"Nothing much," Sakura said. "This morning, we closed Harry's chakra holes up."

"...Why?"

"An experiment. He might be able to use chakra after this. Either that or everything will just be a waste," Sakura said with a shrug.

"Ah, well that's life, isn't it?" Asuma said. "It will either get better, get worse, or stay exactly the same."

'...Is there any _other _option?' Gaara and Sakura wondered, sweatdropping.

"Ah hah!" a triumphant voice said. It was Madam Pomfrey. Surprised again, Sakura turned around. The lady had been gone for a while and hadn't come back until now. "Mr. Sabaku, I have found you at last!"

"...Crap."

"You come here right this instant!" the school nurse shouted, stomping after Gaara, who grabbed his gourd and began to run.

"Talk to you in a bit," he said to Sakura as he was pursued by the usually passive medi-witch.

"Mr. Sabaku, I demand you stop and take this sleeping potion right this instant!"

"Make me...!" students could hear him reply as he fled from the infirmary.

* * *

"Why are we here?" Naruto complained to Ron and Hermione. Hermione glared back at him. 

"You're staying," she said stubbornly. "Either you stay with us while we research, or you tell us who those people really are."

"What people?"

"Don't be stupid, Harry, that Naruto kid and his friends! Honestly, what is wrong with you today?"

Oh...damn. They were researching shinobi?-! Naruto made a mental note to tell the others what Harry's friends were doing.

"Eh." Naruto shrugged as Hermione pulled Naruto and Ron to the bookshelves full of Japanese books.

"We stopped here last time," Hermione said, moving over to the next shelf. "Okay, Ron, grab those Japanese ones, and I'll take these ones in English..." They pulled out several books in order. Naruto noted that all of the ones written in Japanese were taken not randomly or by a certain order or topic, but by group. They obviously didn't know what they were reading, or else they would know that ninjas would not be in a 'How to magically prepare sushi and other Japanese delicacies'.

He snickered to himself, careful not to do anything to make Ron and Hermione suspicious. They were trying to find information about them in Japanese books, but they didn't even understand it!

As Hermione led Ron and Naruto, carrying a precarious stack of books, the bookworm girl stopped by Pince's desk and pulled out a pair of reading glasses.

"I'll start the Japanese books," she ordered them. "You start reading the English ones."

"You know Japanese?" Naruto asked.

"Harry, for the last time, _no, _I do _not_ speak Japanese. The spell is in the glasses."

Naruto sighed. Books. That's what this school was all about. Wands and books. He preferred classes to studying. After a few minutes, he found it wasn't too bad. While Hermione was fussing over all of the Japanese books they pulled out but didn't need, Naruto found a lot of interesting information.

He and Ron were reading graphic novels. Naruto found himself enjoying the manga, Recca no Honou (6). He ought to show this to Gaara so he can give it to the Makotos. That would be interesting. Hermione found herself stressing out later that day.

"I can't find anything!" she complained.

"We haven't been looking at it _that_ long," Naruto said.

"You try putting on these blasted glasses and reading this," Hermione said, rubbing her eyes. "The translation spell really gives me a headache. That's enough for today, let's do something else."

"Yes!" Naruto cheered. He stuffed the books back in the bookshelf, surprised to find Sakura and Gaara meeting behind a bookcase, talking about something important. Oh, the festival, but as soon as Naruto arrived, they gave him a strange look and left. What were they talking about that was so secretive? Also, skulking behind the bookshelf was that really surly quidditch player, Viktor Krum, who seemed to have been watching him, Hermione, and Ron. Naruto had pulled out a few books so he could stuff a few more in them when he saw the older boy looking at him through the books.

"..." Naruto stared at him. "Er...hi."

"Don't tell those girls I am here," he whispered through the books.

What girls? Naruto looked at the doorway, and found several girls looking around, toting several autograph books. _Oh_. The fanclubs.

"Harry!" Naruto turned around.

"We're going to Hagrid's hut," Ron said. "Are you coming?"

"Sure," Naruto said. Despite the fact that no one seemed to notice it was his fifteenth birthday, things have been going surprisingly well so far in the day. Nothing bad happened yet. Now, to avoid trouble for the rest of the day...

* * *

Hermione, Ron, and "Harry" went to Hagrid's hut. Hermione carried a whole case of her SPEW badges... Why doesn't she just leave the poor House elves to their work? 

Naruto knocked on the door.

"It's 'bout time!" Hagrid said, opening the door for them. "Thought you lot'd forgotten where I live!"

"We've been really busy lately, Hag—" Hermione started to say, but stopped dead, suddenly at loss for words.

"..." -

The giant man was wearing his best (and very horrible) hairy brown suit, with a checkered yellow and orange tie. But that wasn't the worst of it. He apparently tried to tame his hair. By using large quantities of axle grease. It was slicked down, and there was a thick rubber band tied at the very tip of it, as if he had been trying to wear it as a loose ponytail like Neji's hair, but found his own was untamable.

This look...it didn't suit Hagrid at all.

"Harry"/Naruto, Ron, and Hermione goggled at Hagrid for several minutes until they decided just not to comment.

'This guy needs Ino!' Naruto thought, astounded by the giant man's appearance. 'And even _she_ probably wouldn't be able to fix him!'

Hermione coughed uncomfortably. "Erm...where are the skrewts?" she asked, forcing her eyes away from Hagrid.

"Out by the pumpkin patch. They're getting massive now," Hagrid said. ("Oh joy," Naruto muttered.) "Mus' be near three feets long now. On'y trouble is, they've started killin' each other."

"Oh no," Hermione said. "Really?" She elbowed Ron, who was still standing there with his mouth open.

"Yeah. S'okay now though. I've got 'em in separate boxes now. Still got abou' twenty of 'em left."

"Oh, well _that's_ lucky," Ron said, his words seeping with sarcasm.

"Hehehe, you jus' wait. Yer going ter see some stuff yeh've never seen before. The first task...ah, but I'm not supposed ter say," he said. "I don' want ter spoil it fer yeh. But it's gonna be spectacular, I'll tell yeh that. Them champions're going to have their work cut out. Never thought I've live ter see the Triwizard Tournament played again!"

They ended up having lunch with Hagrid in his hut, although they didn't eat much. Hagrid made what he insisted to be a beef casserole, but after Naruto unearthed a large talon in his 'beef' casserole, he and the other two lost their appetites... Nevertheless, they enjoyed themselves, trying to trick Hagrid into telling them what the tasks in the tournament were going to be, speculating who would be chosen as Triwizard Tournament champions, and wondering whether Fred and George were beardless yet.

Naruto smiled to himself. Normally, on days like these, things ended badly for him, but it wasn't too bad. Although Hermione ended up looking quite crushed (or rather, offended) when Hagrid flat-out refused to join her in her campaign to free House elves. It'd be doin' them an unkindness, Hermione," he said somberly. "It's in their nature ter look after humans, that's what they like, see? Yeh'd be making 'em unhappy ter take away their work, an' insultin' 'em if yeh tried ter pay 'em."

"But Harry set Dobby free and he was over the moon about it! _And_ we heard he's asking for wages now!

"Yeah, well, yeh get weirdos in every breed. I'm not sayin' there isn't the odd elf who'd take freedom, but yeh'll never persuade most of 'em ter do it—no, nothin' doin, Hermione."

Looking quite offended, Hermione stuffed away her SPEW badges, and Naruto changed the subject.

"It's almost time for the feast!" Naruto said.

"Oh, is it?" Hagrid said. "Righ' then. I'll just be right back, you three don' go off withou' me."

Hagrid took out a large jug and sprayed it on himself. Ron, Naruto, and Hermione all fell over.

"HAGRID, WHAT IS THAT?" Naruto coughed. The smell... urgh...

"Eh? Don' yeh like it?"

"Is that aftershave?" Hermione asked him in a slightly choked voice.

"Er, eau de cologne... Mebbe it's a bi' much. I'll go take it off, hang on..."

Hagrid left and Ron and Hermione were freaking out.

"Eau de cologne...? _Hagrid_?"

"Did you not see the hair and the suit?" Ron added. "Something's wrong about this, 'Mione. Dead wrong..." He whimpered.

"Look!" Naruto exclaimed, pointing out the window. Students from Beauxbaton were leaving the carriage, led by Madame Maxime.Hagrid had left the barrel of water, following the giant lady, with a rapt, misty-eyed expression on his face.

"Hey, he's going up to the castle with her without us!" Hermione said indignantly.

"He _fancies_ her," Ron said incredulously.

"Well, if they end up having children, they'll be setting a world record—bet any baby of theirs would weigh a ton..." Naruto muttered.

* * *

When Naruto and Harry's two friends entered the Great Hall, they found that the Goblet of Fire had been moved from the entrance hall to Dumbledore's currently unoccupied seat at the teacher's table. No one was saying anything. Were they just too excited? No, the black cloud hovering over Snape and Anko could be seen, and they were constantly sending dark glares at one another. Apparently, they hadn't made up from their last Potions class. If anything, it got worse. Naruto didn't know it was even possible, but now it seemed it was. Sakura waved at Naruto. 

"I'll be right back," Naruto said to Ron and Hermione. Some people jumped when the Kage Bunshin Naruto and Sakura were enveloped in smoke, where Naruto's Kage Bunshin disappeared and Naruto took his place.

"Hinata says that Harry's coming back," Sakura whispered to him, though it wasn't necessary, as everyone in the Hall was busy stuffing their faces as much as possible to get over the feast. "Kiba's getting him. But there was a problem. Harry sent back a few letters. Kurogane's disappeared—"

"What?"

"I know, I know. Um, apparently, he said he's gone to look for a dog of his friend's," she said nervously. "No one's seen him since, so we can only hope that he comes back. And he's the only one who spoke English who we sent to Hogsmeade, so that was also a bit of a problem."

"Why?"

"Naruto, Harry didn't know Japanese. They spent the entire day staring at each other, confused."

"Wow, I bet that was interesting," Naruto said, making a weak attempt at a joke.

"Not funny. Harry said that they stabbed his hand with a quill and made him write his name in blood on a weird Japanese scroll. Tell me what you think."

"A summoning contract?-!"

"Exactly. The Makotos are playing around again. Harry also mentioned in the letter that there was absolutely no pain from the experiment this morning."

"And him not being in pain is a bad thing?"

"It is when he still can't seem to use any magic."

"Oh, that _is_ a bad thing..."

"A 'bad thing' is an understatement," Gaara said from behind them. "We may have just permanently screwed up the Boy-Who-Lived."

"Ugh," Naruto groaned. "We're probably going to end up paying through the nose... Think Dumbledore is still going to pay us?"

"We just de-magickified the savior of the wizarding world," Gaara said. "I don't think so."

"Demagickified?" Sakura repeated. "Is that even a word?"

"I'm Kazekage. It is now."

"You're abusing your authority," she laughed. "But seriously, we can't tell anyone, but we have to find out a way to fix this. Don't tell _anyone_, Naruto. There's only one person I'm telling, and that person is Anko."

"Why Anko?" Naruto asked. "She's completely air headed."

"She's like us," Sakura said. "She won't tell Dumbledore if we ask her not to. We just have to fix this problem ASAP. Anyway, we're going to get passes from her to go into the restricted section."

"We?"

"Me and Gaara," Sakura said.

"Once again, my insomnia has yet another use," Gaara said. "Hinata's looking up magic depletion, and Neji sent a letter to Hanabi asking her to send as many chakra depletion books as possible without letting her dad find out." He glanced back at the Gryffindor table and took off his hitai-ate. "_Harry's friends are coming_."

"Huh?" Sakura looked at them and turned back around, taking off her hitai-ate band as well. Naruto followed her actions.

"_Oh yeah, I almost forgot_!" Naruto said. "_Hermione and Ron made me go to the library today!_"

"_We know that, we were there_," Gaara said.

"_Yeah, but you weren't looking at what we were really doing_," Naruto insisted. "_This is important. Really! Apparently, Harry won't tell about us, so Hermione is having him and Ron look us up in the library!" _

"Hey," Ron said, "have either of you two seen Harry? I thought he came by over here." Naruto didn't really understand, but Sakura and Gaara shook their heads, so he did too. "Alright, thanks," he said, walking away.

"_I'm not worried that they're looking us up_," he said. "_I've read all of those books that even mention us. Hardly any of it is accurate, although there were a few surprisingly recent and accurate pieces of information, although they seem rather far-fetched. No one will believe those books anyway. It just makes me wonder how they got information on the recent techniques when we were the first shinobi to come in this very century, if not the first to come overall._"

"_Wait, by recent and accurate, you mean the manga_?" Naruto asked. The only thing he had spotted in those comics were a few of the weapons in Flame of Recca.

"_Sure. I mean the manga_," Gaara said sarcastically. As Hermione and Ron left, they put their hitai-ates back on. (8)

Dumbledore was talking. "...Well, the goblet is almost ready to make its decision. Now, when the champions' names are called, I would ask them to come up to the top of the Hall and go through into the next chamber where they will be receiving their next instructions." he said. "I expect the Goblet is almost finished choosing, so please wait a few minutes."

And they waited for something to happen. And they waited...and waited...and waited...

Fifteen minutes later, they were still waiting, but others were talking now, not really paying attention. And then, the lights went dim. All talking ceased as students looked up at the goblet and Dumbledore expectantly. Blue-white flames danced around the Goblet of Fire until it suddenly became a brilliant shade of red, blinding most people in the room (with the exception of Shino). Dumbledore's hand shot out as a lick of flame pushed out a single piece of parchment.

"And the champion for Durmstrang is... _Viktor Krum_!"

"Now imagine what impact it would have had if it spat out the name when Dumbledore _wanted _it to," Gaara said sarcastically.

The Great Hall exploded in applause and the world-renowned quidditch player stepped forward, going into the chambers behind Dumbledore as Karkaroff shouted loudly, "I knew you had it in you, Viktor! Bravo, bravo!"

Temari rolled her eyes, hearing this. "Suck-up..." she muttered. Temari stood up as well and held her head up high, imitating the Durmstrang Headmaster. "Bravobravobravobravobravo!" she said in a singsong voice, almost exactly like Karkaroff, who was still busy 'bravo'ing Viktor to notice her mockery.

The flames became blue once again, and the applause began to die down and turn into more indistinct murmuring. They waited several more moments when the flames dyed red again, spitting out another name.

"And the champion for Beauxbatons is..._Fleur Delacour_!"

"It's that girl!" someone said as a silvery blond haired girl from the Ravenclaw table that Naruto, Gaara, and Sakura were currently sitting at got up to join Viktor Krum in the back room. The other Beauxbaton students were disappointed. No... 'disappointed' was a major understatement.

'More like devastated,' Gaara decided as two girls and a boy sitting next to him burst into tears, sobbing on their arms. He edged away from them as a girl tried to cry on his shoulder, ignoring the fact that he was now sitting very close to Sakura. It would have been categorized as 'uncomfortably close' rather than 'very close' if either one of them had been made uncomfortable by the... proximity of the other. Then again, Sakura was a bit busy freaking out about how she may have permanently damaged a world-famous hero and Gaara was freaking out about having an older French guy who trying to cry on his arm. Yeah...both were a bit preoccupied.

There was only one school left. Hogwarts. Who was going to be the Hogwarts champion? ((To readers: if you do not know this, then I am...I'm amazed. btw...NO I AM NOT STICKING NARUTO OR ANY OF HIS FRIENDS IN THE TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT! TOO MANY PEOPLE ASK THAT! I'M NOT THAT PREDICTABLE (am i...?) HAHAHAHAHAGAHAHAHA)). Another parchment flew out of the Goblet of Fire. The crowd held its breath.

"And the champion for Hogwarts... is Cedric Diggory!"

There were quite a few 'Nooooos!' from the Gryffindor table. Otherwise, everyone else clapped enthusiastically. A few heads turned as the door in the back opened. Harry had finally come back, along with a boy with triangle markings on his face and a humongous dog. But no one really cared, because the Triwizard Tournament was officially about to commence.

"Excellent!" Dumbledore said. "Well, we now have our three champions. I am sure I can count upon all of you to give your school champions every ounce of support you can muster. By cheering your champion, you will contribute in a very real—" Dumbledore was spared his speech as the fire in the goblet was red again. Sparks were flying out of it, and a long flame shot into the air. It was another piece of parchment. Dumbledore reached out and seized the parchment. He held it out into the flame-light and stared at the name written on it for several moments. There was a long pause during which Dumbledore stared at the slip in his hands, and everyone in the room stared at Dumbledore. Then Dumbledore cleared his throat and read out...

"_Harry Potter_."

'Oh shit,' Harry thought as all eyes turned on him. He hadn't even reached the table with Hermione and Ron yet.

'Oh shit,' the shinobi all thought.

"Will our... will our fourth champion please step up?" Dumbledore asked wearily.

"Fuck," Naruto muttered to Gaara and Sakura at the Ravenclaw table. "That's bad, isn't it?"

The flame wasn't out yet either. It was still red and sparking and the goblet spat out another, larger piece of parchment. Dumbledore caught this larger piece and looked visibly shaken. "And... will Hyuga Neji, Sabaku Kankurou, Sabaku Gaara, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto please come up as well?"

"Fuck. That's worse, isn't it?" Naruto said, looking at Gaara. Gaara looked back at Naruto. For the first time, he looked stunned. Well, not quite the first time. But it was the first time he was stunned and no one was beating the hell out of him. Yeah.

The shinobi listen stood up quietly, rather hesitant to go up in front of all these people. "That...that's funny," Naruto said nervously to them.

"There are many ways I could describe this situation," Sasuke muttered. "Humiliating is one example. Insane is another..."

"...And nothing about this is funny," Neji finished for him.

"Yeah... it's not," Naruto said sadly. So much for a peaceful birthday.

((Did you really think I wouldn't stick one or two of five of them in the tournament thingie? Hah! Tricked you! I am just as predictable/unpredictable as you think I am! Haaaah! Explanations for those specific characters come later.))

* * *

(1) More jokes! Aaaah?-! The next thing you'll know, Gaarakichi will be wearing baggy, neon, polka-dotted clothes and doing cartwheels down the Great Hall. He doesn't need any make-up (that'd be as scary as hell). (Then again, that's what clowns are... as scary as hell...) And I'm thinking about it now, but Kankurou would make a cool clown. And when people laugh at him, he'll beat them up. and people watching will watch and laugh as people get beat up by a clown and since Kankurou's beating up those who laugh, he'd end up beating them up too, and he won't stop until everyone's down because then everyone will be laughing as the other gets beat up. Of course, they'll either be laughing or screaming about a killer clown, because those _are_ scary. Seriously, anyone ever read/watch It? _Freaky_.  
(2) Gaara has some sort of attachment to the strange. Like the tent they were in at the Quidditch World Cup. Magic in general, because he has never seen anything like that before.  
(3) Out of class, the shinobi prefer to use normal muggle items. I mean a quill VS a pen. Which are you going to choose?  
(4) In the first chapter when Neji blocked Draco's chakra holes, it didn't hurt. Why? Because there were only three. I'm thinking that the more holes a Hyuga blocks, the more painful.  
(5) Irakshaimase: welcome (used in shops)  
(6) Flame of Recca is a manga that I get a lot of my ideas from. Or plan to anyway. Yeah.  
(7) I am a ninja of the Hidden Sand Village. Do you understand?  
(8) The hitai-ate band makes you understand and speak any other languages. It's...hard to explain, so I'll do it later when I want to. Or when I can. Same thing.

* * *

**Reasons for choosing who I chose for the Triwizard Tournament:  
**If you read Chapter 12 well enough, you'd have seen Moody's plan. At first, he doubted that all of them were ninja. He still does. But there are several things that 'Moody' had to consider.  
1) He doubted that Naruto was a shinobi, but he does know that Naruto would be against him and has some strange creature in his mind that can supply him with a large amount of power from attempting to 'Imperio!' Naruto in class.  
2) Moody/Crouch Jr. is on Voldemort's side and Voldemort is on Orochimaru's side. So, of course, Voldemort would have heard of the infamous Uchiha Sasuke and must have relayed that information to Moody/Crouch Jr.  
3) Neji has the white eyes and Moody obviously knows that Neji suspects him of something strange. Which, by the way, Neji cannot see the real Moody in the trunk very clearly. Why? Because he sees EVERYTHING. It's like placing several transparencies on top of each other. The pictures and the words on the transparencies are going to go on top of each other, making it really hard to make out separate things. All Neji knows is that he has a large 'creature' in his trunk, but considering all of the scars, he must assume that Moody is paranoid and likes dangerous things, almost like Hagrid.  
4) If you hadn't noticed, Gaara isn't too careful if people find out he's a shinobi or not. Moody would have found out anyway.  
NOW, don't forget that these people are all sort of famous in the other world.  
1) Sasuke: the sole survivor (excluding Itachi) of the most famous clan, the Uchihas, with some of the most powerful doujutsu. Rookie of the year in Konoha.  
2) Neji: he's the prodigy of the Hyuga's and he's not even in the Main house. Rookie of the year in Konoha before Sasuke. And he's a jounin, too.  
3) Gaara's the freaking Kazekage. How can you _not_ know who he is? Not only that, but he's got the infamous Ichibi in him. I'd say he's pretty damn famous, being the demonic leader of the Sand...  
4) Naruto has the Kyubi. The strongest demon. _Ever_. And not only that, HE HAS A BRIDGE NAMED AFTER HIM. Yes. A _freaking BRIDGE_. (although I'm not sure if Naruto even realized that it's named after him...)  
And don't forget, the shinobi live in villages, and in the hidden villages, _almost everyone _is a shinobi. Meaning relatives are also particularly likely to be a shinobi as well. Moody wouldn't have chosen Hinata because she's a girl. As is Temari. But Kankurou is not. I'm sorry folks, but the girls aren't in the tournament. They're rather important for later uses, so don't complain because I have a perfectly good reason.

* * *

Who thinks Snape is still a good guy? AFTER reading reading the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? 

Also, has anyone recently read a fic similar to my own in the sand bachelor thing? I made a list on there based on a list from another person's fic and I put out the chapter before asking permission to use it so I really want to know what the fic is called or who wrote it, please. It's like... Gaara is set up with all girls, goes to Konoha, goes on a date, w/each, and ends up with a surprise girl. I haven't had time recently to scour the fictions on here. There's too many and I've been really busy with work today, so... if anyone sees it, can ya do me a favor and tell me who wrote it so I can ask them/him/her? **EDITTED: NO LONGER NEEDED **


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18: The De-Transformation!  


The shinobi all sighed and hesitantly stepped through the doors. They could almost feel the eyes staring up at them and the cut in their paycheck to come. It was just one thing after another, wasn't it?

Viktor Krum, Cedric Diggory, and Fleur Delacour were all gathered around the fire. They looked rather impressive, silhouetted against the flames. To Harry anyway, considering that the shinobi had seen much more impressive people in their lifetime (and most of them actually _being_ the more impressive people). Viktor was hunched, a bit further away from the other two and the fire. Cedric was standing at attention, with his hands behind his back staring into the fire.

"What is it?" Fleur asked Harry. "Do zey want us back in ze Great Hall?" It took Harry a brief moment to realize what she had meant by this comment. She thought...he was just the messenger boy... He didn't know what to say to them, or how to explain to them what had just happened. All he could think was, '_...These people are very tall..._' Harry didn't answer the question. So someone standing behind him did.

"No," a voice said. "They do not need you back there." Harry jumped. It was Gaara standing behind him. ...And Neji and Naruto and Gaara's weird older brother Kankurou and Sasuke. Harry hadn't even noticed them standing behind him.

"Then vy is it that you are all here?" Viktor asked them.

"The cup forgot to count," Naruto said. "The number of champions in this tournament has just shot up from three... to nine."

"Nine?" everyone in the room repeated. They counted silently. Yes, there _were_ nine.

"Our names were all on one sheet, apparently," Kankurou said with a shrug.

"We might end up playing as one group or something," Neji added.

"What Ms. Hyuga said is true," Bagman said, "although others may consider this a game—all fun and play—this is more of a life-and-death situation and all."

"I am a man," Neji said.

Viktor straightened up. His surly face darkened as he surveyed these new arrivals. Cedric Diggory looked nonplussed. He looked from Bagman to the newcomers, and back again as though he was sure that he must have misheard what Mr. Bagman had said. Fleur, however, just brushed her hair back over her shoulder (subtly catching the eyes over everyone in the room), and smiled.

"Oh, vairy funny joke," she said.

"For the last time, I am _not _a woman," Neji insisted angrily. Honestly, what was it with these people? Just because he had long hair, a pretty face, and a slim frame did _not_ mean he was a female! Argh!

"That's not what we're surprised about," Cedric said cautiously. "We're talking about how...how you were all chosen for the Triwizard Tournament."

"The cup spat our names out," Naruto said. "What more can we say?"

"But zair is obviously a mistake here," the only girl in the room said contemptuously to Bagman.

"No really?" Kankurou said sarcastically, in the same type of tone he used when speaking to the Elders in Sunagakure. "I must've missed that when Dumbledore called six extra names, all from the one same school, and how all six spare champions are underage. Thanks for pointing that out to me though... I wouldn't have noticed it, really..."

"Well..." Mr. Bagman said anxiously, wiping his face with a handkerchief, "...it is amazing... But, as you know, the age restriction was only imposed this year as a safety measure. And as their names have come out of the goblet... I mean, I don't think there can be any ducking out at this point... It's all written down in the rules. You're all obliged to do this... they'll just have to do the best they—"

The door behind them opened again, and a large group of people came in, with Professor Dumbledore in the lead. The shinobi all looked intently at the fire, pretending not to notice the old man and avoiding eye contact. Everyone (excluding Naruto, who seemed to fail to understand the importance of this event) looked stressed, surprised, dazed, angry, or somehow all of the above. Mr. Crouch, Professor Karkaroff, Jiraiya, Madame Maxime, Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, and Anko followed after Dumbledore. The buzzing of thousands of students talking in the Great Hall could be heard until Snape shut the door.

"Don't lock it," Anko said to him. "I think there will soon be more of us coming."

"Don't tell me what to do," Snape replied angrily. Despite the roaring fire in the hearth, the room had just gotten ten degrees cooler. Everyone watched Snape and Anko verbally duke it out. Round 2! FIGHT!

"No, don't _you _tell _me_ what to do!" she shot back.

"I didn't tell you what to do, Mitarashi."

"Yeah, you did!"

"I did not."

"Yeah, you did!"

"I did not."

"You told me not to tell you what to do!"

"...That doesn't count, you fool!"

"Yes it does, and don't call me a fool, you ugly, ugly man you!"

"Ah, what an intelligent response!" Snape said, not even bothering to cover his words with a sneer. "How long did it take for you to think of _that_ at night? An hour? Two?"

"Only fifteen minutes, thank you very much," Anko spat scathingly. "All of the 'scourgifies' in the world can't fix the pollution gathering in your hair!" ((Thanks, mechman123))

"And all the diets in the world can't help your weight, what with your constant snacking on that dango trash!" Everyone in the room gasped. Anko was shocked.

"Did. You. Just. Call. Me. _Fat_?" she demanded in a halting voice.

Even Snape had realized by then that he had gone too far. "...No." He had just broken one of the most forbidden taboos when dealing with your everyday bloodthirsty kunoichi. The golden number one rule: _NEVER call her fat_. Anko clobbered him.

BITCH-SLAP!

Mouths were left agape. Snape scowled at the girl. He waved his wand.

"Aah!" Anko was suddenly hanging in mid-air by her ankles. She glared at Snape, holding her robes up, and threw her wand at him like a kunai. It bounced off his forehead.

"Brilliant, Mitarashi," he sneered. "Throwing away your only weapon!"

"Severus, please stop playing around," Dumbledore scolded, waving his wand. Anko fell onto the floor, rubbing her head and continuing to glare at the Potion's Master. "This is no time to be ridiculous." ((Me: Au contraire, Dumbledore, it's always time to be ridiculous.))

"That goes for you too, Anko," Jiraiya said. Anko paused in her glare. The legendary sannin spoke to her! Yes! Now she had made verbal contact with all three! Woo-hoo!

"Madame Maxime!" Fleur whined. "Zey are saying zat zese—zese little children are to compete also!"

'L-little..._children_?' all of the shinobi thought, a stress mark appearing on their foreheads.

"We're not children," Neji said firmly.

"What?"

"We are considered full-grown adults with the same capabilities and talents as those twice our age," he said.

"Or even five times our age," Sasuke added, glancing at the older professors with a sneer on his face that even Snape would be impressed with.

"Calling us children would be like calling Karkaroff fulsome to the point of nausea," Gaara said. "True, but _degrading_. Since no one calls Karkaroff fulsome or any such thing to his face, I expect the same common courtesy from you to avoid calling us children, whether it is behind our backs or to our faces."

"Spoken like a true diplomat," Dumbledore mused. "But please do not do so and keep all threats, insults, and blackmailing out of this room, as we need to remain on topic and discuss this current set of... events."

"'Ogwarts can not 'ave so many champions," Madame Maxime said. "It is most unjust."

"We were under the impression that your Age Line would keep out younger contestants," Karkaroff said. He was still smiling, but his eyes were colder than ever. Not that it really affected anyone in the room. Gaara and those with the doujutsu had a much more intimidating look to them in battle. "Otherwise, of course, we would have brought a wider selection of candidates from our own schools."

"It's no one's fault but theirs," Snape said, his eyes alight with malice. "Don't go blaming Dumbledore for Potter's determination to break rules. They have all been crossing lines the moment they arrived at this school—"

"That's fine and dandy and all, _Snape_," Anko said, "but that only applies to Harry Potter then. The others have kept their noses clean, violent tendencies aside. And the messes they do cause are perfectly... innocent (yeees, innocent...), and they clean up after themselves."

Dumbledore was now looking down at Harry, who looked right back at him, trying to discern the expression behind Dumbledore's half-moon spectacles.

"Did any of you put your name in the Goblet?" he asked them, an air of calmness about him. "Harry?"

"No," Harry said truthfully. Snape made a rude sound of disbelief behind him. Anko silently smacked the back of his head, causing him to jerk forward. When he glared back at her, he found her pantomiming disgust, acting as if she had touched something truly disgusting. He pulled her ear and she grabbed his nose (an easy target for its size). They started 'wrestling' with each other at the room. And by wrestling, (I) mean smack-fighting. Professor McGonagall, who was standing next to them, was doing her best to ignore them.

"Did you ask an older student to put it into the Goblet of Fire for you?"

"_No_," Harry said more firmly, a bit annoyed that these questions were aimed more at him.

"'E is lying!" Fleur said angrily.

"He could not have crossed the Age Line," Professor McGonagall said sharply. "I'm sure we could all agree on that."

"Dumbly-dorr must 'ave made a mistake wiz ze line," Madame Maxime said.

"It is possible, of course," Dumbledore said politely.

"Dumbledore, you know perfectly well that you did not make a mistake!" Professor McGonagall said angrily. "Really, what nonsense! Harry could not have crossed the line himself, and as Professor Dumbledore believes that he did not persuade an older student to do it for him, I'm sure that should be good enough for everyone else!" she shot an angry look at Snape who, with Anko, paused in their silent smack-fight to look innocent, which they both failed to do so.

"Well it's good enough for me," Jiraiya said, who didn't really care that his kids were still causing chaos in the school even after a month of readjusting to their new environment.

"Mr. Crouch, Mr. Bagman, Mr... uh...Jiraiya," Karkaroff said in an oily voice. "You three are our objective judges. Surely you will agree that this is most irregular."

"I'll tell you what's irregular," Jiraiya snapped angrily. "An almost equal number of boys and girls entered their name in this contest, but there is only one girl among these eight boys! Why is that? There should be a more equal amount of boys and girls in this tournament! It is appalling! I protes—"

"Get your mind out of the gutter, ero-sennin!" Naruto said accusingly. Ero-sennin? All of the other shinobi hid a smile at that.

"Quit calling me that!" Jiraiya said.

"What is an ero-se—?" Karkaroff started to ask, until Neji cut them off.

"I think we're getting off-topic here," he said.

"Huh? Oh, right," Mr. Bagman said. "We must follow the rules, and the rules state clearly that those people whose names come out of the Goblet of Fire are bound to compete in the tournament."

"Bound by what?" Neji asked, curiously, as he (along with the rest of the shinobi excluding Naruto) were looking for as many loopholes in this tournament as possible.

"Magic of course," he answered.

"I insist upon resubmitting the names of the rest of my students," Karkaroff said. "You will set up the Goblet of Fire once more, and we will continue adding names until each school has champions. It's only fair, Dumbledore."

"But Karkaroff, it doesn't work like that," Mr. Bagman said. "The Goblet of Fire has just gone out. It won't reignite until the next tournament—"

"In which Durmstrang will most certainly not be attending!" Karkaroff exploded.

"Question!" Naruto said, raising a hand in the air. "When's the next tournament?"

"Don't ask useless questions, boy!" the Durmstrang headmaster said angrily.

Gaara glowered at Karkaroff in Naruto's defense, easily overpowering the Durmstrang headmaster's glare.

"The only useless things are ass-kissers, idiots, and those who lose their temper, as well as their ability to think clearly," Sasuke said. "And right now, you qualify under all three categories, so you're not one to talk."

As it turned out, it seemed that Gaara wasn't the only one in Naruto's defense. Karkaroff quickly found himself the victim of a murderous sensation, emanating from a glowering 'punk' with eyeliner, an angry red-eyed Asian, the long haired 'boy' who had a pair of pale eyes with the veins in his temple subtly rising, and... the guy with the face paint (who didn't really seem to care, but was scary anyway) (1).

"The next tournament," Karkaroff said, defeated by the combined forces of their murderous glares, "is in fifty years."

"Well then you can't really say for sure that Durmstrang won't participate next time, can you," Kankurou said. It was more of a statement than a question. "I'm sure you're not going to live _that_ long—"

"Will we get back on track now?" Karkaroff said angrily. "After all our meetings, negotiating, and compromises, I little expected something of this nature to occur. I have half a mind to leave now."

"Without Viktor?" Naruto asked.

"What do you mean 'without Viktor'?" he said.

"He was chosen by the goblet. Didn't someone say those chosen are magically bonded to do whatever we're going to do?"

"Yeah, it's convenient isn't it?" a voice growled. Half the people in the room jumped, noticing a larger number who had entered the chamber without them realizing it.

All adults turned around to see a small parade of people entering the doorway. Karkaroff glared at Moody, and saw a bigger, somewhat menacing look-alike standing behind him.

"..." Some rubbed their eyes, seeing two scarred strangers inside. Things must be rather stressful, for them to see doubles like that. Next to the 'imaginary' look-alike was a silver-haired man with only a quarter of his face showing and an orange book in hand, and standing by his side was a red-eyed woman. After them were two kids, led by a man with his hair tied up and a scar reaching across his nose. It was a blond girl and a boy who looked almost exactly like the man with the scar across his nose, aside from the fact that he looked annoyed, he was smaller, and he didn't have a scar. No one said anything, confused and trying to figure out when while they were talking had all these people entered the room.

"Yo," Kakashi said, not looking up from his book until Kurenai grabbed the book, snapped it shut, and held it in her other hand so he couldn't reach it. "Aw..."

Karkaroff glared at Moody. "Convenient, you say?" Karkaroff said to Moody. "I don't think I understand you, Moody."

"It's also amazing to know that what even you don't understand, these younger children—less experienced in the game of life—do," Ibiki said. Everyone froze. ...The imaginary look-alike spoke! It WAS another person!

"And we give the floor to resident Genius and friends," Kakashi said, smiling to them under his mask. Shikamaru shrugged.

"It's all simple, really. Someone put their names in the goblet, knowing that they'd all be forced to participate if it came out."

"Evidently, someone 'oo wished to give 'Ogwarts two bites at ze apple!" Madame Maxime exclaimed.

"I quite agree, Madame Maxime," Karkaroff said, bowing to her. "I shall be lodging complaints with the Minister of Magic, _and_ the International Confederation of Wizar—"

"Will you just let him finish his assessment?" Ino said angrily. "We are wasting our time here. I had plans!"

"Parties aside," Moody said, "If anyone's to complain, it's _them_."

"Why should zey complain?-!" Fleur burst, stamping her foot in frustration for emphasis. "Zey 'ave a chance to compete, 'aven't zey? We 'ave all been 'oping for weeks and weeks. A thousand Galleons in prize money! Ze honor for our schools! Eternal glory for ze winner! Zis is a chance many would die for!"

"Hey, don't interrupt!" Ino said. "We're not done talking so shut your mouth!"

"Do not tell _me_ to shut up, _little geerl_!" Fleur shouted back.

"BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP AND ACT LIKE ADULTS SO WE CAN GET ALL OF THIS BEHIND US!" Kurenai shouted, causing everyone in the room to jump. Frightened, the blond girls grabbed each other in fear.

"Yes ma'am..." they squeaked, cowering before the red-eyed demon.

"_Anyway_," Shikamaru said. "There are several incomplete facts that I would like to point out to Delacour's comment. One: none of us are interested in glory. It's bad for our lives, if not our health. And Potter has all of the glory he needs, having defeated Vo—You-Know-Who as an infant. Being the last Potter alive, he has also inherited a substantial amount of gold. After all, what are a thousand or two Galleons to a billionaire? And _we_—not including Potter—are well-paid for what we do and have no interest in the prize money. Except for Kiba, but none of you know him and he didn't get in, so it doesn't really matter anyway. As for the school honor, we've been here for less than two months, and believe me when I say we haven't gotten so attached to this place at all. The honor of this school is as much worth to us as much as a kick in the pants."

"Nice metaphor," Kankurou snorted.

"'_E_ 'asn't here for only two months!" Fleur said, pointing at Harry, who felt an immediate dislike for her. "'E 'as been 'ere for four years!"

"Is four years long enough to give Potter enough experience to Confound the Goblet of Fire, which is centuries old?" Shikamaru asked. "Because I don't think a fourth year at Hogwarts could have powerful enough magic to do so."

Judging from their silence, no one had an answer for that. So Shikamaru continued his 'speech'. "Dumbledore, may I see the two slips of parchments? The one with Harry's name and the one with our friends' names?"

"Of course," Dumbledore said, handing them the two slips of paper.

Shikamaru inspected it and nodded. "I knew it. The cup had been confounded, and the evidence is here in their names. And their 'schools'," he said. "Tell me, has anyone ever heard of the schools Xurve? No one? What about Ruen? Or Sarmatia? And Galia? And there are two other nonexistent schools listed here that I am unable to pronounce, but the point is that someone had entered these five under schools of different names, and Confounded the cup, tricking it into thinking that there are more than three schools in the Triwizard Tournament. It thought that there were _nine_, for Merlin's sake." ((Anyone else surprised that a cup doesn't know how to count...?))

"Also, five of them are on one slip of paper," Shikamaru added. "It didn't remember: only one student at a time on one slip of paper. As they were each in a school of their own, if one was chosen, they'd _all_ be chosen. Someone just wanted to be extra sure."

"It sounds as though these students have thought out every last thing, Moody. Are you teaching them to fear assassination as well?" Karkaroff said.

"His paranoia has nothing to do with our self-awareness and our knowledge of the way people's minds work," Shikamaru said. "Our ability to understand people is not paranoia like Moody's, but it's more based on common sense than anything else."

"Zis is insane, listening to a boy even younger than us," Fleur declared.

"No, what's insane is all over you believing that a fifteen year old _kid_ has magical abilities equal to a full grown adult wizard, casting a spell over a magical counting cup to illegally enter a stupid tournament that claims to be deadly fun and fatal, even though the few talents he _does_ have include sticking his nose in business that is not his, running headlong into danger and life-and-death situations, and crawling out of it half-dead. I applaud him with my utmost respect for his blind luck and his tendency to cause disasters and miracles."

("Gee, thanks...")

"How this situation arose," Dumbledore said, "We do not know. It seems to me, however, that we have no choice but to accept it. They were all chosen to compete in the tournament; and that, therefore, they will do."

"Ah, but Dumbly-dorr—"

"If you have a solution to this problem, then feel free to give us a suggestion," Dumbledore said. "However, I do believe I have a way to more-or-less even the odds that are stacked against the other schools." He said something in a low voice to Jiraiya who grinned in response.

"Oh, D, you are a genius," he said with a gleam in his eye. "_Alright kids_," he said, reverting to Japanese. They had a bad feeling about this... "_We are pairing you each with a champion. You are all to help your champion in any way you can, so long as you abide by the tournament rules. To assure that each of you try your best... well, you know how none of you are probably going to get your money for this job? Well, your pay may all be deducted, but whoever wins the tournament with their selected champion will receive their pay in full, plus, perhaps, a little extra reward. Meanwhile, losers get their deserved price, deductions and all_."

The shinobi were all quiet for a moment. They were setting them on each other?

Neji shook his head. He was...he was going to be partnered with one of them... And he knew who really wanted him... This was bad. "No. Way."

Neji's short comment brought on a torrent of complaints from the rest of the shinobi.

"Only ONE of us gets our pay?"

"Then that means the rest of us are going to end up with, like, TEN FREAKING GALLEONS!"

"This is completely unfair!"

"I object! Ero-sennin, you suck!"

"What's going on here?" Karkaroff said angrily. The Japanese man had said something in another language that immediately raised an air of aggression, and he had _no idea_ what was going on.

"Let's put it this way," Jiraiya said. "These kids are pretty much geniuses in Japan. So talented, they received payment—like a scholarship—to come here. They were to be paid a large amount of Galleons each at the end of the year. But now this has happened... They each will be paired with a champion. Whatever school wins gets the prize, the glory, and etcetera. Their partners will get their scholarship."

"We 'ave an odd number of people," Madame Maxime said,

"That'll be dealt with," Jiraiya said, turning to the Durmstrang headmaster. "Karkaroff, since you are so vocal in your opinion, your champion may be first to choose."

"Fine," Karkaroff said, looking over them. "The big one. With the face paint. You, boy, what's your name?"

"It's Kankurou," the puppeteer said, making a face of annoyance. "But Jiraiya said the champion chooses. Unless you plan on taking Viktor's place in the tasks, it should he Viktor's choice."

The headmaster glared at him angrily. He'd been doing a lot of things angrily tonight. "Fine, Viktor, who do you want to choose?"

"I vould... I vould like to choose his younger brother, Gaara," Viktor said, looking at the redhead.

"But—but surely you would want the older one, with more experience?"

"I haff spoken with his sister and his friends briefly several times before now, and it often sounds as if Gaara is the 'leader' of their group," Viktor said. It was true, but not the real reason. He had seen the look Kankurou had shot at Karkaroff when he was chosen and knew that Kankurou did _not_ want to be chosen by him.

"Very well," Karkaroff said sulkily.

"Okay," Dumbledore said. "Miss Delacour?"

Neji froze in fear of what was to come... '_Not me, not me, not me..._' he chanted silently in his mind.

'_Hm... Should I pick the pretty one_?' Fleur thought to herself, looking at Sasuke. '_Or the prettier one? Choices, choices..._'

"The long-haired boy with the pale eyes."

_'Nooooooooo_...!'

"Good. Cedric?"

" Kan—" Cedric faltered as Kankurou glared at him. "Uh, _can_ I work with Sasuke?"

"Fine. And Harry?"

"Erm..." Kankurou was watching him. "Naruto."

"Good," Dumbledore said, clapping his hands together.

"But what about Kankurou?" Gaara asked, suspicious of his own brother.

"What about me?" Kankurou asked him gleefully.

"'E does not 'ave a partner," Madame Maxime said.

"I work well enough alone," he said. "Anyway, I have sort of a... a spell. To get me a partner. Yeah. A partner..."

"You can't just choose someone like that," Karkaroff said. "If that person wasn't chosen as a champion or anything, then whatever partner you have in mind can not help you."

"Well, it's not really a person. It's more like an extension of me. Like a hand or a foot. Just a really big one, though."

"Like a Kage Bunshin?" Naruto said.

"No."

"What's a Kage Bunshin?" Harry asked, hearing it mentioned a few times before.

"It's a thing," Naruto said.

"This hardly seems fair," Mr. Bagman said. Ino looked at Shikamaru, who shrugged.

"It does to me," Shikamaru said.

"It's fair," Ino said with a smile. She made a fist with one hand and placed a palm on it, almost threateningly. Mr. Bagman didn't notice this gesture, but he did get a strange, dazed look in his eye however.

"It's fair," he said airily. Everyone in the room looked at him strangely.

"Good," Ino said cheerfully. "Now that our current dilemma is over, what's next? Are we done yet?"

"The task," Shikamaru said, remembering what Dumbledore had said earlier at the feast. "Champions were _supposed_ to come inside so they can get information about the first task. And then all this happened..." Shikamaru glanced at Ino who nodded.

Mr. Bagman lost the empty-headed look and clapped his hands together. "Well, shall we crack on then? Got to give our champions their instructions, haven't we? Barty, want to do the honors?"

Everyone turned to look at the man in the corner. He had bags under his eyes and almost yellowed skin. His bloodshot eyes looked... not as bad as Gaara's eyes, but bad. The shinobi glanced at each other. This was not the look of a healthy man.

He coughed. "The first task is designed to test your daring. So we're not telling you what it is," he said to them.

("Fat load of help _that_ is to us," Naruto muttered under his breath. "Then what was the point of making us go back here in the first place?")

"Courage in the face of the unknown is an important quality in a wizard... very important... The first task will take place on November twenty-fourth, in front of the other students and the panel of judges. The champions are not allowed to ask for or accept any help of any kind to complete tasks in the tournament..." he paused in his speech, remembering the recent change in events. "Aside from the help you are given by your partner," he amended. "But no other teacher or student is allowed to help you here. The champions will face the first challenge armed only with a wan—" he paused again, glancing at the shinobi's disdainful look, "—a wand or anything that can be carried in one's pocket then."

('I'm going to need a big pocket,' Kankurou thought to himself.)

"They will receive information about the second task once the first is over. Due to the demanding and time consuming nature of the tournament, the champions are exempted from the end of year tests."

"Hey, this stupid tournament doesn't totally suck after all!" Naruto said excitedly. Sasuke shook his head. This stupid blond gave him a headache. Ino laughed at the look on Sasuke's face.

"Yes, Naruto," Dumbledore said, "It doesn't. Now, I do think it's time for all of you to return to your Houses, as I would hate to deprive your classmates of an excuse to cause a racket and make loud noise."

"Right!" Naruto said. They all left the room as quickly as possible. Karkaroff led a surly looking Viktor Krum out, as Madame Maxime and Fleur left, speaking rapidly in French. Ino gasped, hearing what they said.

"What do you mean I'm a total bit—?" Ino started to shout, but Sasuke grabbed her arm and smiled.

"Let's not waste any more time here than we already have," he said. Ino went gooey again. How was it that they understood languages they had never heard of? The translating spell on their hitai-ate could be very useful.

"Okay! (heart)"

Sasuke laughed. "Besides, I think Fleur's going to be really disappointed soon," he said, looking at Neji as the Hyuuga walked away from them as fast as he could.

"Why?"

"Did you not see how she was looking at Neji? Like she wanted to... to _glomp_ him! Creepy. Wait until she finds out he has a girlfriend."

Ino paused and laughed out loud. "Oh my god, I almost feel sorry for her now," Ino said gleefully. Take that, blond bitch!

Sasuke smiled. Oddly enough, Ino and Fleur, like he and Malfoy, were exactly alike. Although they were almost physically identical as well. (2) Not that he'd ever admit it to Ino. She'd be pissed.

"So, Sasuke," Cedric said, feeling a bit left out (poor Hufflepuff! Everything and nothing happens to him!). "How'd you manage to get in this tournament?"

"I heard my name and stood up," the brooding Slytherin said in a curt voice that cut off all future conversations. Cedric was starting to wish he had gotten the friendlier one...

"So, Harry, it's you against me again," Cedric said to him.

"Hn."

"Yeah." More silence. "So how'd you get past the Age Line?"

"I didn't."

"Oh," he said, sounding unconvinced. "Okay. Well, see ya." The Hufflepuff went down a separate stairwell, as did several of the shinobi.

"We'll be seeing you tonight, I guess," Sasuke said to Harry.

"Huh? What's tonig—?" Ino and Naruto dragged him away.

"Hurry up!" she said excitedly. "I'm sure everyone else is already getting ready.

"Err... yeah..." Harry did not look forward to going back to the Gryffindor common room where...

All Gryffindors were having a huge party.

"HARRY, I DIDN'T KNOW YOU ENTERED!" Fred said, with a mixture of awe and envy.

"HOW'D YOU GET IN WITHOUT GETTING A BEARD?" his twin asked.

"I didn't—" Harry was almost drowned in a current of Gryffindor students. Aaah!

"Have some butterbeer!"

"I don't want—"

"Harry, Harry! Come over here for a picture!"

Hell. No.

He unknotted a Gryffindor banner, which Lee Jordan had tied around his neck, and ran for the safety of the dorms, locking the door tight. To his great relief, he found Ron, already sitting in bed.

For some reason, there was an awkward silence. "Hey, Ron."

More silence. "Hey, Harry."

They stood there for, like, five minutes. "Yeah."

"So," Ron said suddenly. "How'd you manage to get your name in? Invisibility cloak?"

"I didn't enter myself," Harry said. "And Dumbledore said that even the Invisibility cloak wouldn't get across the Age line."

"Oh, that's right," Ron said. "I thought so. Because if you did, you'd have told me too, eh? Then we both could have entered."

"_I didn't enter myself_," H said firmly, feeling slightly annoyed.

"I'm sure you didn't," Ron said snidely. "You probably had your new friends do it for you."

"What new friends?"

"Those Japanese people."

"...They are _not_ my friends," He said. Friends don't beat the hell out of you and call it training and make you lose your magic!

"Sure. You don't have to lie you know. I heard all about it. Violet, the Fat Lady's friend, told us. Don't have to take finals, do you? Lucky break, eh? I don't know why you're still lying. You're not getting in trouble for it, right? I mean, I'm not _stupid_."

"That's great!" a voice said. A dog barked. Harry turned his head to find Kiba in there with him. "We don't really care. Come on, Harry."

"Huh?" He could have _sworn_ he had locked the door. "Where am I going?"

"Party in the Great Hall!" he said, dragging Harry backwards out of the door by the back of his shirt, with Akamaru following closely behind. He could see Ron glaring at him as Akamaru pulled the door shut with his massive jaws.

"But I don't want to—"

"Yes you do!" Kiba said cheerfully. And Harry was taken back out of the Gryffindor common room. Not that he really cared right now. With his best friend acting strange like that, there wasn't any other reason for him to need to stay.

They were at the 'festival' in the Great Hall. It wasn't so much as a festival as it was a meeting. A shinobi meeting with lots of drinks going around. All Harry wanted to do was go to bed, but they insisted that he stay with their subtle persuasion, glares, and silent death threats.

"So," Shikamaru said to Kankurou, Gaara, Naruto, Sasuke, and Neji, with a bottle of some strange alcoholic drink. Sake? In Hogwarts? For underage students? Maybe in Japan or wherever these people were from, the legal drinking age was different. (FYI: it isn't) "In short, your cover has been blown."

"How do you know?" Naruto asked. "Are you sure?"

"It's only obvious," the genius said. "Moody claims this is the work of an enemy who is trying to kill Harry. And, it seems, whoever stuck your names in the cup knew who you guys are. If you look hard enough, there's a connection. Sasuke became very well known—in a not-so-good way—after he defected and joined the Sound. And then he was a popular conversation topic once again when he rejoined the Leaf. And don't forget, he's the last Uchiha. Sorta. Whoever the enemy is, he can't po—"

"Why not she?" Ino asked him.

"I'll explain that in a bit," Shikamaru said irritably. "Anyway, _he _can't _possibly_ miss him. And then there's Gaara, who's the youngest kage in history. Ever. And he is also a Jinchuuriki. Of course, if Gaara is a shinobi—which is the reason I am _assuming _that we are being targeted for now—then his family must be as well. Which is the most likely reason that Kankurou would have been chosen. The other reason Kankurou may have been chosen, I'll explain in a bit. But why not Temari?"

"Yeah, why not me?" Temari said, suddenly feeling annoyed at having been left out of the 'Sand siblings' trio.

"Well, I am _assuming_ that whoever this person is, he must be underestimating the talents of a kunoichi," Shikamaru said. "And if you're underestimating the power of a woman, then it's safe to assume the one doing the underestimating is _not_ a woman. After all, Temari, you're a woman. And you're strong. Are you going to assume that women are weaker and less dangerous?"

"Hell no!" Temari snorted, backed up by eye-rolling and scoffs from her fellow women-kind.

"I _think_ I get it," Naruto said, scratching his head.

"Okay. Good. So Sasuke's famous. Gaara's famous. Kankurou's relatively well-known and brother to a famous guy. Next, Naruto—"

"I'm famous?"

"You've got a bridge named after you. I think you are," Shikamaru said, giving Naruto a condescending look.

"I have a bridge named after me...?" Naruto said, in awe of himself.

"The Great Naruto Bridge, right?" Shikamaru said. "It's in the Land of Waves. A tacky name, but it's still your name."

"It's a good name," Naruto said, grinning as he remembered Inari and his grandpa.

"Whatever."

"What about Neji?"

"What about me?" Neji called over from another table, eating sesame dango with Tenten.

"Neji doesn't even look close to normal," Shikamaru said. "White eyes. How many people have white eyes and _aren't_ blind? Also, he's the Hyuuga prodigy. Anyway, I have to say that whoever the enemy is, he has to be somewhere at Hogwarts. If it's even only one person. Someone who's seen and known us long enough to know for sure that we aren't your average 'wizards'. Of course, we can't really safely assume that it's just one Hogwarts suspect. It could be one person of a whole group, the rest of the group not even in this country. Wherever this country is. Yeah. _But_ there's more...

"We can only say that the person who entered us is a wizard if the reason they entered us in the contest was because they knew of us from their own powers of deduction. It could be a shinobi. A shinobi who wants us out of the way. Most likely from the Sound then. That's why they would target Sasuke. Kankurou and Neji are the only two jounins among us. They were entered. Gaara's the _kazekage_. Of course you'd stick him in there. And Naruto's been trained by a sannin, like Sasuke. That might be why he's a target. It could be a shinobi attacking those with a rank that he or she deems most dangerous, planning to pick off the seemingly weaker ones while others do the tasks during tournaments."

"That's...that's a lot of thinking," Harry said, amazed by Shikamaru's thinking process. And this only happened, what, thirty minutes ago at least? An hour since it all started.

"That's what Shika-kun does best," Temari said. "Thinking and staring at clouds. And other things..."

Shikamaru sighed, feeling Kankurou and Gaara's glare on him...intensify. Thanks Temari, you're endangering the genius.

"(Ahem) Anyway, the best course of action would be to remove some of us from this school," Shikamaru said with an uncomfortable cough. He really didn't like the way Temari's brothers were glaring at him...

"Wait, but aren't we 'magically' supposed to compete or something?" Naruto asked.

"Those of us chosen are staying for sure," Shikamaru said. "We should send a few back to Konoha, and send more out to the rest of the wizarding world.

"I'll go," Chouji said immediately. Shikamaru looked at him.

"Are you sure?"

"Robes here fit me funny," Chouji said. "And teachers don't let me eat in the classroom. It's been a living circle of hell here."

"Okay," Shikamaru said. "Anyone else?" Everyone else looked at each other. They had gotten a bit attached to this school.

"Fine then," Shikamaru said. "We draw straws."

Hinata looked nervously at Naruto. She couldn't get the straw! Naruto was staying! She had to stay too!

'I'm sorry, Kami-sama,' she prayed. She'd have to cheat for this one.

Shikamaru held several slips of paper in his hands. Each of them where folded. Some said Konoha, some said Hogwarts. Everyone (excluding the present champions) grabbed a slip of paper.

"Open your sheet," Shikamaru said.

"Hogwarts," Hinata said.

"Hogwarts," Tenten said.

"Hogwarts," Kiba said.

"Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts." (okay, in short, everyone says Hogwarts except for...)

"KONOHA!" Lee said excitedly. Shikamaru frowned.

"Okay," Shikamaru said, taking in a deep breath. "Let's try this _again_." He took back the slips of paper. He shuffled them like cards and held them out for everyone to pick up again.

"Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts..."

"KONOHA!" For some reason... this sounded like a shinobi-wizard version of duck-duck-goose...

This was done four more times until Shikamaru just groaned and shook his head. "Okay, everyone, close your eyes."

They closed their eyes.

"Whoever cheated, raise your hands. No looking, Hyuugas. That means you, Neji."

"You suck, Shikamaru."

They heard the genius of the group sigh. "Okay, now open your eyes."

They opened their eyes and looked around. Everyone had raised their hands... Except for Lee.

"You guys stop cheating!" Shikamaru said, now looking remarkably like Iruka on a bad school day. "I mean it! No genjutsu!"

"Pfft, like anyone's going to follow that," someone said. It was Anko, followed by the other shinobi teachers.

"Are you sure this is a festival?" Kurenai asked them. "It looks more like a meeting."

"Our festival has turned to a meeting, thanks to these idiots," Shikamaru said, pointing at Harry and Naruto and Champion friends. "I take it you told them what's happening now?" he asked Kakashi.

"I did," Kurenai said. Asuma, who had finally left the safety of the infirmary, grabbed a bottle of sake on the table and actually took a cigarette out to drink.

"So, did you guys decide what you're all going to do?" Asuma asked them.

"Nope," Shikamaru said. "I've been trying to pull slips of paper to decide who else goes back to Konoha, but _everyone keeps on cheating._" He glared at them, uncharacteristically Gaara-like. "But Chouji and Lee are going back home for sure, since they don't mind. The earliest they can leave is in a few days. The... Interdimensional... Transportation... Device... _thing_ only works about once a week, according to Dumbledore."

"Well then it's settled," Asuma said. "We decided ourselves that Gai, Ibiki, Iruka, and I are going back to Konoha."

"Thank god!" Shikamaru said. The shinobi he was trying to work with were the best of the best, but... they were so immature! "Finally. Next is spreading our influence. We need a way to spread our forces. Since no one seems to want to leave Hogwarts, which may be a problem."

"I have already found a solution to that," Shino said. "I have gotten a job that'll take care of that."

"A job?" everyone repeated. They waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't, so the topic was dropped.

"Okay then. Security at Hogwarts," Shikamaru said. "We must have let our guard down, to so carelessly let _Harry Potter_ here get in the tournament. Not only him, but five of us."

"Uh yeah," Naruto said. "Sorry 'bout that."

"Too late now. We need to upgrade security. We don't have enough Hyuugas to scout twenty-four seven, so we'll here's what we'll do. Shino, your bugs—"

"His bugs?" Harry echoed.

"Yes. His bugs. He has bugs. Anyway, he'll have them constantly about the school, searching for irregularities."

"The school is pretty big here," Tenten said. "Is there even enough?" They looked at Shino, not sure whether they'd get an answer or not.

"If I spread them thinly, I should have enough to spare to keep to myself in times of emergency," Shino said. "One insect every meter, perhaps."

"Good enough," Shikamaru said. "But it takes time for him to gather the more immediate information. Who else aside from Hyuugas have automatic spying techniques? It's been a while since I've worked with you guys one-on-one or in a small group, so if you've gotten some new technique, I probably don't know it."

"I have one," Kankurou said. "It's not automatic, it uses more chakra than I'm used to when using my puppets, and I haven't figured out how to use it, but I might be able to manage to work with it if you give me some time."

Shikamaru nodded. "Work with it. See what you can do. Anyone else?"

"I'm working on something too," Naruto said, to everyone's surprise. "I haven't figured out how to do it at all, but I have a basic theory."

"Good," Shikamaru said. He hadn't been expecting Naruto to develop a new technique for spying. It really wasn't his thing. Then again, maybe his exposure to Jiraiya... woke up some urge to spy... on certain things... and people. Not that he wanted to think of what Naruto would do with it. He preferred to think of him as an idiot. Not a pervert. ((ahem! has he not heard of the infamous Sexy no Jutsu...?)) "No one else?"

Everyone shook their heads. Nope. "Alright. Naruto, Kiba, do you think you can use Akamaru and Vikki to periodically scout Hogwarts ground?"

"That's what Vikki does anyway," Naruto said. "I think."

"Well, there's nothing more we could do about the security now," Shikamaru said. "And last, we need someone to break into the Ministry of Magic."

Harry coughed on a bottle of butterbeer, which has been sitting on the table unopened until now. "What?" he said.

"Break into the Ministry of Magic?" Ino said. Shikamaru had said that relatively clearly.

"You can't do that," Harry said. "What about their security?"

"It's not _that_ good," Neji said.

"Anyway, we need to get back in there and add more information to our profiles," Shikamaru said. "All of you work together and make a convincing life history for each of you. Be detailed but not too detailed. Include relatives, family history, blood lines, and other stuff. Hinata, Harry, keep Kiba and Naruto from writing anything stupid. Keep your noses clean. We don't want any of you to be battle-hardened criminals from Azkaban or anything. Nothing outrageous. I'm also upgrading our Shinobi Chronicles and our parchments and I'll make enough copies for all of us. I think that's all for tonight."

"Now there's one last thing to do," Sakura said. "Drink and have fun!" She cheered. Gaara frowned. And then his eyes got big and he tried to hit himself (although his gourd seemed to come apart to protect his forehead.)

"What's wrong?" Sakura asked him.

"Nothing..." he grumbled. Uh... yeah.

So what did shinobi do for fun? This wasn't an official festival. There weren't any games to play, and any competition might end up with them hurting themselves. So...

"KAKASHI, I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DRINKING CONTEST!" Gai said, pointing at Kakashi who looked up from his book.

"You're on," Kakashi said with a shrug.

'I'll beat you this time, Kakashi!'

'I like sake...'

The teachers all had a contest. Kakashi had beat Gai. While Gai was constantly chugging down the drinks, Kakashi would pour it into the plant next to him while Gai wasn't looking. It wasn't as if he couldn't stand the sake... He just didn't prefer the fire whiskey they had switched to when they ran out of drinks. Their contest ended when Gai fell backward to the ground, passed out, and Kakashi went back to Kurenai, perfectly sober (although the plant next to him was quite dizzy).

Meanwhile, the other students stuck to butterbeer.

"So Neji, what happened in that room?" Tenten asked him.

"I like butterbeer," he said, looking down his into cup swirling it so that the water moved in circle.

"Naruto said something about being partnered with someone for the tournament since there were so many of us."

"It's supposed to be an alcoholic beverage, but it is also very sweet."

"... Are you partnered with... that Viktor Krum?"

"I like this better than sake."

"Are you avoiding the subject?" Tenten said, getting really annoyed.

"...I like butterbeer," he said weakly, having run out of new things to say about his disgustingly sweet drink.

"YOU'RE PARTNERED WITH THAT BEAUXBATONS GIRL AREN'T YOU?" she shouted.

"I really, really like butterbeer...!" they could hear Neji whimper as Tenten proceeded to shout at him.

"Lee," Naruto said, "what's wrong with you?"

"Tonight is the full moon!" Lee said excitedly.

"Um... okay then."

"I don't know why I have changed, but I know that everything will be better soon!" Lee said, giving Naruto a thumbs up and a flash.

"Um...okay then."

"N-Na-Na-Naruto-kun," Hinata said, stuttering even worse than she had been in weeks. She fumbled with a box nervously in her hands, but Sakura pulled her away from him.

"Wait, Hinata, you knew it's his birthday?" Sakura whispered to her.

"Um...y-y-y-ye-ye-yes," she said nervously, glancing at Naruto.

"Okay, okay, then just wait a second," Sakura said. "We'll let you do it in a second, just hold on until. We'll give him cake first, and then presents."

"W-w-w-w-we?"

"Me and Gaara," Sakura said. "We made plans and convinced the house-elves to make a big cake! And they were happy to do it too."

"Y-y-y-you... and _Gaara_?"

"Hey, Gaara is Naruto's friend too," Sakura said. "So do you want to give him the present first or cake first? Your choice for now."

"C-c-cake," Hinata said.

"Alright, alright," Sakura said. "On three, we jump him and shout Happy Birthday. One...two...three—"

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Sakura shouted. Hinata wouldn't have jumped at him, but Sakura had a firm hold on her wrist. But Sakura didn't hug Naruto. She practically shoved Hinata into Naruto's arms as he turned around in surprise.

"Surprise, Naruto!" Sakura said. Naruto looked down at Hinata, and Hinata wide-eyed looked up at Naruto.

"..." She turned red and passed out.

"Nice going, Sakura," Ino said.

"Sh-shut up, Ino-pig!" Sakura said, fanning Hinata awake. "Hinata, Hinata, I'm sorry!" she said, bringing the girl back.

Meanwhile, Gaara glared expectantly at the table, his arms crossed in front of him. He glared at the table. However, the table, being an inanimate object, did nothing and he continued to stare. "Cake," he said firmly, like a command. "_Cake_."

"Um, Gaara?" Naruto said nervously. Did the kazekage finally crack?

"Are you okay?" Temari asked him, putting the back of her hand on his forehead.

"I'm not sick," Gaara grumbled. He took a deep breath. "YOU STUPID HOUSE ELVES, SAKURA TOLD YOU TO MAKE A DAMN CAKE!"

Pop! A large cake appeared on the table, shaped like a small village.

"...Wow." Harry looked at the cake closely. On top of it was a small, miniaturized city, complete with what appeared to be Mount Rushmore with different faces, rather than presidents of America.

"You got a cake that looked like Konoha?" Ino said in amazement. "That's awesome!"

Neji limped and crawled away from Tenten, who was now done yelling at him for getting stuck with Fleur Delacour.

"You have the entire Hyuuga complex," he said, lifting the roof to look inside the building.

"And the rest of the city too," Shikamaru noted. "Exactly proportional."

"What's Konoha?" Harry asked them.

"It's the village where we're from," Chouji said (yay he's got a speaking role! finally! T-T) "Konohagakure, Hidden Village of the Leaf."

"Cool," Harry said.

"Cut it, Naruto!" Sakura said excitedly.

"...With what?"

Good question. The house elves didn't supply them with any knives or even forks or spoons. Tenten pulled out a six foot pole arm with a wicked blade on the end. "Here, Naruto, use my Kwan Dao!" How did she fit that huge weapon in her sleeve?-! ((thanks for the weapon, Shadowed Shinobi!))

"Tenten, that's not what I bought it for," Neji said. "It's a weapon, and it's _not_ for food."

Tenten ignored him, looking a bit offended, but stuffed it back up her sleeve.

Ino sighed and grabbed Hinata's arm. "Hinata's chakra scalpel." She placed Hinata's arm in Naruto's hand

"...This is weird."

"Naruto, I want cake. Cut now."

Naruto cut the cake into large chunks, giving a piece of the city to everyone. He saved a large chunk of it for himself. The Ichiriku ramen stand! All his to eat!

"N-N-Na-Nar-Nar-Naru-Naruto-k-k-kun...I-I-I g-go-got you a... a present!" Hinata said loudly, blushing. Naruto eagerly opened the box she gave him and gave her a sloppy grin.

"Ramen! Thanks Hinata-chan! How'd you know?"

"I-It au-au-aut-automa-matica-caly r-re-re-refills itself," she said. ((argh! Her stutter is so annoying to type!))

Sakura and Ino exchanged mischievous glances. The blond made the sign of the dog with her hand. Naruto leaned forward and kissed Hinata on the cheek.

"Ah...I...Naru...to-kun..." She passed out.

"Ah! Hinata-chan!"

Neji would have slaughtered Naruto but one: it was his birthday, and two: he had his hands full catching his cousins.

Ino laughed. "Aaw," she whispered to Sakura. "I meant to get him to go lip-to-lip! But it's still so cuuute! Hahaha... I have a feeling a certain Hyuuga wants to kill me... He's glaring at me isn't he?"

Sakura looked over Ino's shoulder. "Yes. Yes, he is." He was giving Ino an 'I-know-you-used-your-darn-mind-disruption-technique-thing-and-I-am-going-to-kill-you' look.

"I'm so glad I don't sleep in the same House as him."

"You should be. He'll murder you in your sleep." ((ARGH! TWO TIMES THAT I LOST HALF MY CHAPTER!))

Sakura handed him a large bag. Curious, Naruto opened it and gaped.

"Whoa, you guys... you guys got me all of Honeydukes!" ((I had accidentally written Zonko's here, and then a person fixed it for me... sorta... it was changed to Marmadukes, and then I realized my mistake and changed it to Honeydukes, haha))

"We did?" Kiba said. Ino kicked him. "Yeah! We did!"

Naruto looked through his candy like a Halloween-er going through his loot. "Thanks, I'll eat all of this by... by... heeey... Who got me the Cockroach Clusters...?" Naruto looked at the name tag. "Kiba?"

"Huh?" Everyone looked at the Inuzuka. "Um, well, uh...yeah! I got you it... Because... like... it's good for..." (if he tried to say their health, someone was going to hit him) "pranks! It's for prankster purposes! Yeah! Pranks...!" He laughed.

"Ooh, okay," Naruto said, and he went back to sorting through his candy.

"Okay," Kiba said under his breath to Gaara and Sakura. "Who gave him the roaches and signed it under my name?"

"My assistant," Gaara said.

"Oh."

The whole group was met by yet another surprise that night, as they got up and prepared to leave. It was an unpleasant surprise. It was Lee.

The Konoha 'beast' was standing in the moonlight shining down from the ceiling when the sunglasses Ino had worked so hard to glue to his face had fallen off, revealing his cheerful circular eyes. The hair that Neji had to use his _chakra scalpels_ just to cut was growing back, going from layers back to his old bowlcut... And his eyebrows... THE EYEBROWS! They were back! They had grown back in clusters until they were, once again, the thick, sickeningly enormous caterpillars they were as before.

"..." -

It was Lee's de-transformation. They had the Asian were-yeti on their hands.

Ino cried. Sasuke pat her on the back.

"It's alright, Ino," he said. " It's alright..."

Shikamaru shook his head. "There has to be a logical reason for all of this. There _has_ to be," he groaned. Noooo, there was nothing he could think of! "Okay, okay... maybe...maybe he's... the moon... the gravitational... pull and stuff... brings out the hair. Hair growth. Sudden hair growth. Milk doesn't make his hair stronger, it makes it grow. Okay then. No butterbeer for Lee, but no milk either. No milk..."

"Aw, Shika-kun can't find a reason," Temari said, hugging Shikamaru playfully. "I guess the bottles of sake and a bit of butterbeer will make your brain turn to mush, eh?"

"It's insane."

Naruto laughed. For his 'first birthday', this wasn't too bad.

* * *

(1) That's not really foreshadowing... It's just showing how loyal they are to Naruto. Like, Naruto's best friends. He can't really choose which one of him is his best friend, as the others would probably kill him and (insert Best Friend's name here), but it is nice to know how quickly everyone else would stand up for him, even if he doesn't need any defense. After all, out of all the characters in Naruto, Naruto has the most 'connections' (I'll post his 'Connections' later on my homepage). 

(2) Yeah... they're both blonds. And they've got their 'mind tricks'. Like, Fleur has her veela powers, and Ino has her mind disruption techniques, which you may spot a new one (that I made up) in this chapter if you look closely enough.

* * *

**My Thinking Corner**

I. Hate. Gym. It's fine and all when we've got free time, but... not right now. It's horrible. It's a nightmare! They...they're... they're making us DAAAANCE! AAAAAAAAAAAHH! Curse you, whoever made the Harlem Shuffle! I SHALL HAVE ME REVENGE ON YOU IN HEEEELL! (I'll meet you there, you loser jerk!) I guess it's good exercise, but I don't like dancing like that. Uuuuurgh! I'm IN hell! Which really makes me... really makes me want to hurry up for the Hogwarts Yule Ball thing. ... Hehehe... dance lessons... Just thought about McGonagall making Ron dance with her. Poor Ron.

I suppose there's a little bit of Ron bashing here, but not much. Only for a little while.

As for why Kankurou didn't want to be partnered with anyone... well, I guess he's acting a bit like Kiba right now, but you'll see why later. It's gonna be a bit funny when the others find out why later. They'll be like 'WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF IT?'

Hinata's stuttering is such a pain to type out. I'm tempted to give her another round of speech therapy and get rid of it, but that would make her all OOC.  
Btw, Gaara freaks out slightly in this chapter during the festival. Well... not really freaks out. More like gets really annoyed with himself. Odd, no? But there's a reason. Whoever guesses why wins a lifetime supply of air.


	19. Chapter 19

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO FULLMETAL-TIGER, WHOSE BIRTHDAY WAS ON MARCH 2, 2006!**

* * *

Okay, speaking of ages and birthdays, I have seriously messed up with the ages. Kankurou is SEVENTEEN. Aaaah! Okay, so if I ever go back to the other chapters, I'll have to remember to change him to a seventh year... or should I just make him sixteen? Because I screwed up with Temari and made her the middle sibling, so she's... sixteen, wait a minute... His birthday is May 15, but... um... let's play Pretend-You-Don't-Know. Um... yeah. From today forward, Kankurou's new birthday is on November 15. **NEW ANNOUNCEMENT PEOPLE: KANKUROU IS NOW TURNING SEVENTEEN IN A MONTH**. (yes, I switched his birthday and his half-birthday. six months isn't that big a big deal, right?) (sigh) I am so totally screwing up the Naruto timeline... Oh well, no one really cares, right? ...Right? 

Oh, and brian, your review confuses me... what? (sorry, I'm slow in the head like that) Something about a friend and Sasuke?

* * *

Chapter 19: What's Money Between Friends?  
(_EVERYTHING_) 

Harry wasn't the only person waking up miserable. Ron wasn't there. In the common room, he could see Ino sulking about with Hinata patting her on the back.

"My... my hard work... all for nothing," the blond girl sobbed into her hands. "What is wrong with that boy's hair? It's...it's insane..."

"Hey, Harry," Naruto said, looking up to see him standing in the door.

"Hey... Naruto."

"Um... here's a bit of advice...don't go into the Great Hall," Naruto said.

"Why not?"

"Um... first of all, Houses are all fighting against each other. I think Hufflepuff hates you as much as Slytherin does. You are now the object of animosity between all three other houses. I mean, even _we're_ having a hard time with them. Well, I suppose Gaara isn't, but, well... for Neji, half the Ravenclaws like him and support him in this tournament, the other half hates him because he's too young. In Slytherin, with Sasuke and Gaara and Kankurou are... well, they've _always_ been relatively disliked by Malfoy and Friends. But, Sasuke's still got about half his fanclub...which is still pretty big... Gaara's got one forming too-"

"_Really_?"

"Yup. Really. And almost everyone's scared of Gaara and Kankurou anyway, so no one's messing with them."

"What about you?"

"I'm not stupid. I'm not leaving this room until I absolutely have to."

"Oh," Harry said. "Well, I can't stay."

"Why not?"

"Because the Creevey's are coming right at me, and I'm not in the mood for pictures," he said, backing out of the portrait as the Creeveys approached him with a camera.

Harry did _not_ look forward to seeing everyone in the Great Hall. He hesitantly stood outside in the hallway for several moments. He could hear lots of talking and some shouting inside. Maybe it was just him, but it seems a bit louder than usual. He stepped forward when Hermione came out carrying a stack of toast.

"Believe me, you do _not_ want to go inside," she said, pushing the plate into his hands.

"Thanks, 'Mione," he said. "What's going on in there?"

"Um... well those Japanese friends of yours are fighting."

"They're fighting, like, as in they're fighting the normal students? Non-exchange students?" He knew from personal experience that Hogwarts students did _not_ stand a chance against these people. Then again, they _did_ have strength in numbers.

"Um...they _were_..." Hermione said, "but now they're fighting each other. They're arguing about something. I didn't really hear the whole story, but it's something about a reward, I think. I heard something about money before they started shouting at each other and fighting. It's horrible in there. It really is. Whenever someone tries to separate them, they ended up hitting that person. And when Sasuke and Kankurou were giving each other really scary looks, some guy tried to get in between them and..."

"And what?"

"They beat the living daylights out of that poor seventh year... _With_ a chair. It's not pleasant in the Great Hall. Um... let's take a walk," Hermione said nervously as some students began to leave and started to head in their direction.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. They left the castle, walking out to the lake. Shino was sitting by a tree, and Kiba and Akamaru were playing with a Fanged Frisbee, which Akamaru was currently trying to tear apart. Harry and Hermione were walking in silence. "So does Ron really think I entered myself?"

"Um... no," Hermione said. "Not really... I don't think so."

"...So that's a no, right?"

"Oh, Harry, can't you see? He's _jealous_ of you."

"Jealous... _Jealous_?-! Why the hell would he be jealous? I'm going to be slaughtered! I'm going to get killed! Everyone dies here! Maybe he'll realize I _don't_ want this when I've broken my neck or something!"

"You guys _can_ talk more quietly, you know that?" Kiba called over to them.

"Harry, please don't talk like that," Hermione said in a lower voice, looking pale. "I'm worried, I really am."

"I just don't get why he's all jealous," Harry said bitterly. "He's supposed to be my 'best friend'."

"Well maybe that's why he's jealous," Kiba sad. "You've kinda replaced him."

"With who?"

"_Us_."

"You guys aren't my friends..."

"Gee, thanks, that makes us feel so appreciated around here," Kiba said sarcastically. "But that's just it. You've met us for what, two months? And all of a sudden, you're doing all sorts of things with us and you're hardly hanging out with Ron."

"It's not as if I _want_ to hang out with you guys," Harry said angrily. "You beat me up when we spar and call it 'training'. That's not training! You hit me and laugh! You _do_ realize that friends don't do that to each other."

"I thought you said we weren't your friends."

"You aren't! Because you keep on beating me up!"

"Ah, I get it now..." Kiba said thoughtfully, with an expression that said, 'I have just reached Enlightenment'.

"The point is," Shino interrupted, suddenly standing near them. Aah! "...that you've been neglecting Ron, so he thinks you're not friends."

"And on top of that," Hermione added, "he's got all this competition for attention. Even at home! I mean, Bill was Head Boy, Charlie was team captain of the quidditch team, Percy was prefect _and_ Head Boy, the twins are funny, and Ginny's the youngest, and she's the only girl to be born in the Weasley family for generations. You're his _best_ _friend_, Harry, but you're also the Boy-Who-Lived. Whenever anything happens, the media goes straight to you and he's practically shoved to the side."

"And do I look happy about that?" Harry asked. He was feeling extremely frustrated at the moment. And it showed. "I, for one, would just _love_ to be shoved to the si—!"

" Ark!" Kiba yelped, jumping up suddenly.

"Did you just bark?" Hermione asked him. Kiba ignored her and pulled out a folded piece of parchment from his back pocket.

"Whoever thought vibrating paper would be a good signal..." Kiba muttered darkly, looking at the sheet. "Hm... hey, Shino, Neji and Sasuke are at it again. Come on, before one of them kills the other." He turned to Harry and Hermione. "Good luck trying to get through the year," Kiba said cheerfully. "I'm sure Sasuke or Neji or Gaara or Kankurou or someone will be... (well, not happy, since none of them ever are...) but they'll be _willing_ to give you advice about how to deal with violent and/or jealous fangirls, stalkers, and psychos." Kiba shrugged; he and Shino left and headed back to the castle.

Hermione shook her head. "You do realize what you have to do once you get back to the castle, right?" Hermione asked him.

"Yeah, give Ron a good kick up the—"

"_Write to Sirius_."

"What? I can't do that!" Harry said hastily. "You know how he reacted when I told you my _scar twinged_. He'll come bursting up to the castle once he hears about this!"

"He's bound to find out anyway," Hermione said.

"How?"

"Harry," she said in an all-too-patient voice. "_You_ are famous. The _tournament_ is famous. This isn't going to be kept quiet. Once the _Daily Prophet_ catches wind of this, it's probably going to get the front page. Sirius would _want_ you to tell them, and you know it."

"But he'll get caught and be sent back to Azka—"

"Come on," Hermione said, now using her no-nonsense voice, pulling Harry by the ear to the Owlery. It was amazing how she could drag him like that.

"Now write," she ordered.

"Yes ma'am," Harry said. She must have been hanging out with Ino and her friends way too much. She was as scary as the Sabaku sister.

_Dear Sirius,_

_You told me to keep you posted on everything that's happening here at Hogwarts, so here it goes—I don't know if you've heard, but the Triwizard Tournament's happening this year. The champions were picked this Saturday. Yesterday right now. Anyway, I've been chosen as a champion. Along with five other underage people. I don't know who put my name in the Goblet of Fire because I didn't. The legal champion for Hogwarts is Cedric Diggory from Hufflepuff. Beauxbatons' champion is Fleur Delacour. The champion for Durmstrang is Viktor Krum, that Bulgarian seeker. I didn't know he was still in school, but I guess he still is. He does look old though. _

_Fleur doesn't really seem to like any of us very much, although she has given Neji a few funny looks. I think she fancies him. Neji is one of the Hogwarts champions like me. He's weird and has white eyes. His hair is long. Like, REALLY long. Sasuke's hair is long too, but not that long. Sasuke just looks dark, and that's the only way I can describe him. Gaara is some guy with red hair and black eyeliner or something around his eyes. Some people say that the marks around his eyes are natural. Weird. He has an older brother who's been entered as well. He wears face paint and a hoodie thing. Naruto's another champion too. He's a loud blond. A complete opposite to the other four. He's the fun one. But I heard they've been fighting each other over money or something... Yeah. _

_Since they got so many of them in the tournament, Dumbledore suggested that we just take the Japanese students (the other five under aged champions are Japanese) and partner them up with the champions. Maybe it'll be safer with them around? I don't know. The Japanese wizards don't seem so worried._

Harry paused at that point. Should he tell Sirius this may be an attempt on his life? He had an urge to say something about the large weight of anxiety that had settled in his chest since he went to bed that night, but there was no way he could put it into words. So he simply dipped his quill into his ink bottle and wrote

_Hope you and Buckbeak are okay.  
—Harry_

Harry rolled up the parchment and Hedwig flew down to him.

"Sorry, girl," he said to his owl, tying the letter around another owl's leg. "I can't use you. I need to use a less... obvious school owl."

Hedwig, with the air of an offended owl, pecked him and flew off.

'Dammit, why is it that almost everyone is turning against me...?' Harry wondered. 'Oh right... Triwizard Tournament...got it.'

It was easy to say that this wasn't Harry's best day. But facing other students in class the next day proved to be worse.

His first class, Herbology, was havoc. For him anyway. Normally, he was on excellent terms with the Hufflepuff. But with the recent events going the way they did, he received a less than welcome greeting. Assistant Kurenai seemed a bit sympathetic towards Harry, although Professor Sprout was a bit cold towards him. No one was talking to him in that class, although he did get a nasty laugh with (or rather, _from_) several Hufflepuffs and Ron when a Bouncing Bulb he was planting jumped up and bopped him in the nose. Ino, who had a talent with plants, swiftly grabbed it and buried it under dirt, although she was trying her best not to laugh as well.

Hufflepuff's reaction towards Harry was logical, if not unwanted. Now that the champion of Hogwarts was in their House, it felt rather unfair that, all of a sudden, each of the other Houses had their own champions as well. But the fact that the champions were being partnered with each other softened the blow. But Harry, the only underage champion, _had_ a partner instead of became one.

'Why wasn't he a partner?' offended students probably wondered. 'He's underage!'

Kankurou was underage as well, but he at least was turning seventeen in a month, and he was also given a small handicap, not being given a partner. Anyway, the Hufflepuff weren't brave enough to insult him to his face, as were many other students and even a few teachers.

Thus Kankurou was relatively safe from agitated Hufflepuffs and other students.

Ron was working with Dean and Seamus, and Hermione was trying (and failing) to create a conversation, acting as a medium between Harry and Ron. Harry shuddered inwardly. If this was Hufflepuff's reaction to his being chosen to compete in the tournament, he feared to see Slytherin's when he had the next class with them in Care for Magical Creatures. As he predicted, Malfoy and friends were even snarkier than usual.

The class was horrible enough. The skrewts had grown to be over three feet long and were massive. Not only did they have to take care of these monsters, but, according to Kakashi, who actually made an appearance that day, they were to help these creatures get their "much needed exercise" and take them on walks.

"Ah, look boys," he said once Harry was in earshot. "It's the Gryffindor champion and his sidekick Naruto. Got your autograph books? Better get a signature now, because I doubt he's going to be around much longer... Half the Triwizard champions have died... how long d'you reckon you're going to last? Five minutes into the task is my bet—aah!" As if a sudden gust of wind blew, Malfoy was covered head to toe in several pounds of wet sand.

"If you keep on letting them mouth off to you like that and get away with it," Gaara said, "they'll never stop talking to you in a rude manner."

"Did you do that?" Harry asked him, watching as Malfoy attempted to brush the sand off of his skin. Oddly enough, it was almost as if it were refusing to come off.

"Of course," he said calmly. "I'm the only one here walking around with a giant gourd of sand, aren't I?"

"Argh!" Malfoy cried out, frustrated. "I'm covered in bloody sand! No, really, it's wet and it stinks of fresh blood!"

Naruto and Harry looked at Gaara nervously.

"Uh... Gaara?" Naruto said. "Where's your skrewt? You know... the one you're supposed to be walking?"

"...Hagrid's calling you Harry," Gaara said, changing the subject andignoring the blond and his question. Harry and Naruto sweatdropped.

"Er, okay." Harry slowly backed away from Gaara with his bloody gourd.

Hagrid had waited until everybody had set off with their skrewts. And then, to Harry, he said in a serious voice, "So—yer competin', 'arry. In the Triwizard Tournament. School champion..."

"One of them," Harry corrected sullenly.

"Righ'," Hagrid said, nodding. "One o' 'em... So, no idea who put yeh in fer it?"

"You believe I didn't do it then?" Harry said, not bothering to cover the rush of gratitude he then felt for Hagrid at those words.

"'Course I do. Yeh say it wasn' yeh, an' I believe yeh. An' Dumbledore believes yer an' all."

"I just wish I knew who did do it," Harry said bitterly.

"Don' we all," Hagrid said sullenly. "Yeh know, those Japanese students—them chosen fer the Tournamen' an' all?—yeah, they been fightin' a lot recently. Somethin' 'bout the Tournament, I think. I had ter separate them in the Great Hall yesterday. It was mighty hard ter do it too. Yeh wouldn' believe how 'ard it was to get them apart. Wai', yeah yeh would, it was them long-haired ones who train yeh. Yeah, it was all creepy. Them eyes wen' funny and they knocked o'er people an' everything. And then that kid with the hoodie got in the fight too an' things started moving. An' he weren't even touchin' any o' them! It was crazy... I could barely do anythin' ter help Dumbledore, so all them assistants stepped in. That Gai guy... he's mighty scary."

"Really?"

"Yep. He appeared outta nowhere an' knocked 'em over like it were nothin'. An' then they were all turnin' against him and I though' it was all over for the guy. And then he does a weird pose and the _entire Hall_ was blinded ('cept fer that kid wit' ther sunglasses) and everyone fell over. Creepy man, that Gai."

"...Oh."

Hagrid and Harry looked out over the lawn; the class was widely scattered now, and all in great difficulty. The skrewts were now over three feet long and extremely powerful. No longer shell-less and colorless, they had developed a kind of thick and grayish armor. They looked like a cross between giant scorpions and elongated crabs—but still without recognizable heads and eyes. They had become very strong and hard to control.

"Looks like they're having fun, don' they?" Hagrid said happily.

Harry assumed he was talking about the skrewts, because his classmates certainly weren't.

Every now and then, with an alarming BANG, one of the skrewts' ends would explode, causing it to shoot forward several yards, so the student holding the leashes were constantly trying desperately to pull themselves out of the mud and get back on their feet.

It seemed that because the skrewts no longer stank, Kiba had no excuse to duck out on the lesson. Not that it really mattered at this point. He had completely given up on leashes. Kiba and Akamaru had a whole pack of skrewts, and they were now skillfully herding them around the field like a farmer and his flock of sheep.

At least _they_ were having fun with the skrewts.

Hagrid suddenly sighed. "Ah, I don't know, Harry," he said, looking back down at him with a worried expression on his face. "School champion... everythin' seems ter happen ter yeh, doesn't it?"

Harry didn't answer. Yes, everything _did_ seem to happen to him... that was more or less what Hermione had said as they walked around the lake, and that was the reason, according to her, that Ron was no longer talking to him.

* * *

**A brief intermission to watch...dun-dun-DUUUN...a beautiful "relationship" form between the Dark Lord and Madoka **  
(and to Mee Yah: Poor girl? POOR GIRL? I say, poor Voldemort! He can't even Crucio her! Poor Voldie...) 

"How do you milk a snake?" Madoka asked Wormtail, hovering over his shoulder as he precariously milked Nagini's fangs.

He ignored her.

"Are you ignoring me?"

He continued to ignore her.

"Hey! Wormsy, you stop not talking to me!" Madoka ordered.

He still ignored her...

Until she slapped the back of his head as he finished milking the poison, causing him to pinch the snake too tightly. The snake bit his hand, but since he had just finished 'depoisoning' Nagini's fangs, he didn't die. Lucky him, eh?

"You stop bothering me," he said to Madoka. She was a nuisance! She was a servant sent by Orochimaru, but all she did was cause problems! Servants were supposed to work! She wanted to work. She definitely wanted to, out of boredom. But it seemed whenever she got involved with anything, chaos and idiocy followed. He understood why the Dark Lord had ordered her to follow him around instead of staying in the same room with him, but she was so...annoying! "I am busy and you are annoying!"

"Aw, but you're so..._annoyable_!"

As nice as it was for Wormtail to finally have someone to shout at and look down upon... he really did wish it wasn't this girl. Sure, she was blind and weak, but she was too cheerful to let any insult get to her. She just wasn't scared enough.

The Dark Lord was good with bigheaded fools and could easily Crucio them into submission. Wormtail was good with children and was always able to get them to shut up. A strange talent, but useless anyway, as Madoka seemed Dark-Lord-proof and Wormtail-proof. And then he made his decision.

"Wormtail... get me..."

((Who is Lord Voldemort summoning to his side? Stay tuned and find out! Yaaay! He's getting the blind girl off his hands! Sorta... And I don't want any reviews saying "MadokaXVoldemort?" Because NO. Ugh, no! ))

**

* * *

****Earlier that morning in the Great Hall...**

"Everyone's staring at us," Sasuke said.

"They're always staring at us," Neji muttered. "You just started noticing now." He and Tenten still had not made up and were sitting at opposite ends of the table. It seemed no longer safe for any of them to be sitting apart, and the Beauxbatons at the Ravenclaw table were glaring at the other champions with a gleam in their eyes.

"No, I don't mean the fanclubs," Sasuke replied. "I mean _everybody_."

Kankurou, who was paying very close attention the spinach Temari had piled onto his plate, much to his disgust, looked up and looked back down.

"Is it me, or are there a lot of very angry people staring at us?" he said.

"It doesn't matter," Gaara said, drinking his tea and looking at his mail. He pet Yaksa, who was sitting at the table, and fed it a piece of chicken from his brother's plate. "Hm, Maruko has just sent a few more things that might be useful to us. They're planning on selling a few items. They're selling new items, Makoto Camping and Equipment Carriers... Shikamaru."

Shikamaru, who was sitting with Temari, looked up warily at Gaara. "Hm?"

"Let the Makoto's borrow your hitai-ate with the translation charm. You don't need it."

"Er... Fine," Shikamaru said, taking his hitai-ate off his arm and giving it to the kazekage. For a minute, Gaara looked like he was going to kill him or something. Then again, he always looked at him like that. He shuddered.

He gave the hitai-ate band to Yaksa and it flew off.

"Now," Sakura said, "What do we do about Harry's... situation?"

"His magic-less-ne—?" Kankurou began, but everyone at the table hit him. Kankurou found himself with a mouthful of coppery sand. He spat out onto the ground and rinsed his mouth out with water.

"His situation_s_," Sakura said stiffly, looking at the Slytherins around them. "All of them."

"Oh. Yeah," he said. "Um... let's just leave it the way it is. Naruto could take care of him."

"Naruto could barely take care of himself. Anyway, I'm curious to know what the Makoto's got him to sign."

They all looked at Gaara. "All they're telling me is that it's a summoning contract," he said. "I'm not sure, really."

"Oh," they said, disappointed.

"What about his magic?" Temari asked.

"I don't think he'll let us use him in any more experiments," Shikamaru said, frowning and scratching his head. "Not after this. So yeah, we have a problem."

"Well, we could train him as hard as we can and just hope no one notices," Tenten suggested.

"No," Shikamaru said. "It would be best if we just ask him to show us all the spells he knows and see if he really can't use any of it. What proof did he show you that he couldn't...do what he needed to do?"

"A simple Levitating charm," Gaara said. "He said so in the letter."

"Hm, you learn that in your first year here," he said. "He was unable to do it?"

"Right," Sakura said.

"Hm, this is rather troublesome. That's the exact _opposite_ effect that should have taken place... Neji, have you checked out his chakra patterns yet?"

"Yes," Neji said. "Ordinarily, when a wizard is dormant, his magic remains still. It charges and gets bigger, but it does so in the chest. When a wizard casts a spell, the magic in him gathers in the chest for a split second before the incantation is uttered, and when the wizard speaks the incantation, it shoots out through the arm. Harry Potter, in his current state, has chakra constantly leaking through all chakra pores, and he is still producing enough to remain completely normal."

"You explained that weirdly," Kankurou said. "Say it again?"

Neji glared at them. "His chakra is leaking out of all pores, but the magic reserve in his chest is stable."

"Ah, so in other words," Shikamaru said, "He has enough magic to leak out everywhere and still feel really normal. We'll have to do another experiment later. Nothing to change him, just make observations of him demonstrating all the spells he knows."

"After all this," Sakura said, "will he really agree to another experiment?"

"Does it matter if he agrees or not?" Tenten said. "There is at least one of us in every single class he has. He'll have to cast a spell eventually, so if he doesn't want to show us him trying to do magic, then that's when we'll watch. Hinata's got a class with him, so she could make the observations of his chakra."

"True," Shikamaru said. "The next pressing issue that I did not bring up last night—the competition... If it were only us in this competition, we'd have no problem. But Harry Potter is in here as well. Which is a pretty big problem, considering he's... vulnerable to _anything_. Our short-term goal is to figure out what the first task is, since we have not received any vital information on what it is."

"Spying," Kankurou said. "Got it."

"Yeah," Sasuke said. "I'll tell Ino about it and make sure she tells the others."

"Good."

"One more thing," Kankurou said. "There's obviously a lot of hostility between Houses, and now the aggressiveness has alleviated, since there are now champions in each House."

"And that's a problem because...?" Neji asked.

"In other words, get out of our table."

"Where else would we sit?" Neji said angrily. Those who were not glaring at him with hate in their eyes were staring at him with hearts in their eyes.

"At your table. We can't be friends, because then we'd be fraternizing with the enemy."

"You do it all the time, hanging out with us all the time! Especially with Gryffindors like Ino and stuff," Tenten said.

"I think it's just fine that they sit with us," Gaara said, not looking up.

"Gaara? ...Are _you_ standing up for _them_?" Kankurou asked his little brother. "_You're_ actually standing up for _someone_?" He threw a fork at the kazekage, which was easily knocked aside by sand.

"What was that for?" Gaara asked him.

"Just making sure you were you..." Kankurou said meekly. "But why do you care if they sit with us or not?"

"When we're in big groups, the fanclubs tend to leave us alone," he said with a shrug. "So why do you get to work alone anyway?" he asked his brother, changing the subject.

"Uh... no reason."

"Kankurou, I am the master of death glares, and I could totally sense you glaring at anyone who wanted you as a partner. What's up with that?"

"Erm... well, you see," Kankurou said, shrinking under Gaara's glare. And this was when he just wanted him to answer a question! "They said...whoever wins doesn't get their pay deducted, right?"

"And your chances are lessened when you work alone."

"Yeah, but... I've got... puppets. And stuff."

"Oh yeah," Temari said. "You got new puppets! I want to see them!"

If Kankurou hadn't had such thick face-paint on, they would have seen him turn pale at those words. But his sudden fear was obvious anyway.

"You two wouldn't lik—You know, that's not the point," he said hastily. "Um... anyway, the _point is_ that, you know, wizards aren't that strong compared to us and all, so it doesn't make that much of a difference whether we're partnered with them or not, anyway, so... if I win the tournament... I get away with... a _lot_ more money than you guys."

No one at the table said anything.

"Shit!" Sasuke said, slamming his hand down on the table. "I didn't think of that!"

"That's unfair," Neji said.

They looked at the last champion who was sitting at the table. Gaara shrugged.

"I can make more money in a month than he will with his prize," he said. "And most of the money he makes on missions is taken as commission. I get some money too."

"...Oh."

"But still," Neji said, "he has an unfair advantage over us!"

"It's your fault you didn't think of it, pretty-boy," Kankurou said.

"...You call me that again," Neji said. "I will 'Gentle Fist' you back to the Sand."

"You can try... pretty boy."

"That's it, you make-up wearing freak, it's on!" Neji said, grabbing Kankurou by the front of the shirt.

"They're overdoing it," Temari said, shaking her head.

"It doesn't matter," Shikamaru said. "All people need to see is a..."

"A fight, it's a fight!" someone shouted eagerly.

"It's those Japanese guys..."

Kankurou pushed Neji back, who bumped into Shino who accidentally sporked Sasuke's hand. Sasuke got up and pulled Neji's hair. Neji twitched and pulled Sasuke's hair as well (1).

"That looks ridiculous," Gaara said to Sakura, who laughed but had to pretend to looked horrified by her fighting friends.

"Oh my gosh, we've got to separate them!" Temari said overenthusiastically, but she stayed in her seat and continued to eat her breakfast. All those who weren't fighting stared at Temari as she drank her juice.

"I'll do it!" Tenten said, but instead of trying to separate Sasuke and Neji, she took the opportunity to start beating Neji upside the head with her book bag.

"...Anyone think she's still holding a grudge on Neji?" Sakura wondered.

"They're the worst actors ever," Temari said, shaking her head.

"You're not one to talk," Gaara said. He rolled his eyes and mimicked her in a high-pitched voice. "'Oh. My. Gosh. We have _got_ to separate them!'"

Everyone at the table sweatdropped.

"That was _so_ out of character..." Sakura said.

"Anyway, their acting skills don't really matter," Shikamaru said. "No one pays attention to dialogue too much anyway. Like in the muggle picture movies."

Kankurou took out his wand but held it in his left hand, holding his right hand loosely as forks, knives and spoons lifted into the air.

"Ow! Kankurou, did you just spoon me?" Sasuke said skeptically, throwing a knife back in his direction.

"Hey! Gaah! Ow, ow, ow, shit, at least I didn't _stab_ you!" Kankurou shouted, jumping to the side as the knife shot past him and grazed his leg. That Sasuke was taking this fight way too seriously.

One student tried to stop the fight. A chair flew at him and knocked him aside with a mere twitch of Kankurou's hand, which went relatively unnoticed.

"Now, now, stop that," Hagrid said, pulling Neji and Sasuke apart by the back of their shirts. Neji activated his Byakugan, glaring at the giant man with loathing in his eyes. He scanned the room quickly and deactivated his Byakugan. He and Sasuke continued to kick and punch each other from a distance.

Hakke Kusho! (Eight Trigrams Empty Palm) (2)

Hagrid fell away from them, as did Sasuke, whom he still had had a firm grip on. Until now. Sasuke performed a series of hand movements and a thin stream of flames poured from his mouth. Neji spun, dispersing the flames, and then...

"THE FLAME OF YOUR YOUTH SHOWS IN YOUR SPARRING!"

Oh...shit. Gai held all three of them by the back of the shirt in one hand.

"Prepare yourself," Shino said, the first words he had spoken that morning.

'Aaaaah!'

Neji, Sasuke, and Kankurou all turned to Gai, prepared to go down fighting when...

A brilliant flash of light shined throughout the room, and everyone fell over from the mere force of it. Was it a spell? No... it was... the teeth of Maito Gai.

The shinobi who were fighting just moments before were on the ground, clutching their eyes in pain.

"Children," Dumbledore said, a twinkle in his eyes, "I do suggest you all visit the infirmary, so Madam Pomfrey may tend to the wounds you received in your fight."

The wounds from the fight? The wounds from the _fight_?-! The bruises and cuts they gave each other were nothing! It was that Maito Gai and his crazy teeth that did this to them!

* * *

While the younger shinobi were carrying out their own plans, the older ones were as well, much to Anko's distress. 

"Nooooooo!" she cried, clutching Kakashi's feet. "Don't make me do this! I can't stand him! I don't waaanna!"

"All we're asking you to do," Kakashi said, not looking up from his book, "is to be a bit more... _friendly_."

Anko whimpered. "But—but it's Snaaaape!" she whined.

"Anko, get off of Kakashi's legs," Kurenai said sternly.

"Why do I gotta do it?" she asked them.

"Because you're the youngest of all of us," Ibiki said. (3)

"Why not Iruka?" Anko said. "I've got one year on him!"

"Yeah, but he's going back to Konoha."

"Damn you Iruka!"

"I'm sorry?"

"Don't say sorry, Anko's just being stubborn," Ibiki said. "You give her any leeway, and she'll definitely make use of it. It's easiest just to treat her like a student. Severus does."

"You're on first name terms with him?"

"You're the only one of us who isn't," Ibiki said to her with a frown. "Because you're a little kid."

"Don't call me that! I'm not a kid!" She stuck her tongue out at him.

"..." Everyone sighed.

"Look, Anko," Kurenai said in her no-nonsense voice, "You are a trained kunoichi and you will act like one for the sake if this mission."

"But... it's _Snape_."

"All you have to do," Kakashi said with a smile, "is get close to him."

"Nooo! I don't wanna get close! I don't want to be in the same _room_ with him! What if he's—what if he's... WHAT IF HE'S CONTAGIOUS?"

"I assure you that you will not catch anything life-threatening from him," Shizune said.

"Ah! She said life-threatening! That means I might catch something else from him."

'You're good with kids. Make her do this!' Kurenai urged to Iruka.  
'But...but Gai's good with scaring people into submission...'  
'But...um...KAKASHI IS BETTER WITH WOMEN!'  
'She does _not _count as a woman...'

Ibiki sighed. He pulled out something skewered on a thin stick...

"Look, Anko! Dango!" he said in an uncharacteristically bright and cheerful voice. "Look, look, it's daaango! Don't you like it? It An-Dango! You liiike it, dontcha?" He waved the skewer in front of her like he was hypnotizing her. He moved it faster, and she followed it with her eyes. "You want the dango. You really really like it, right? It's so sweet!"

Everyone sweatdropped and stared at Ibiki. It... it kind of reminded them of a puppy and its master.

"I want it!" Anko cried, reaching out for it. Ibiki pulled it back.

"Nuh-uh-uuuh!" he said, waving a hand in front of her face. "You don't deserve it yet. Do you _promise_ to be nice to Severus?"

"Yes, I promise with my pride as a Tokubetsu jounin!" she said excitedly.

Ibiki handed her the An-Dango. Anko squealed in delight and ate each down quickly when she realized what she had just sworn to do...

"Aaaah! Noooooo!" she cried, falling onto the floor, clutching her head and hitting the ground in a temper tantrum.

In the end, they all decided: Ibiki's good with animals.

* * *

"You must be joking..." Snape said to no one in particular, looking at the parchment a large hawk had just dropped off. It was a letter from the Dark Lord... but that wasn't what horrified him. It was the what the message itself read. 

_Severus Snape,_

_I've heard news of Japanese students at Hogwarts and of many... Japanese assistants. I have living proof that 'ninjas' exist. They call themselves shinobi. I want you to find out who these newcomers truly are and if they are a threat to us. I hear you have your own Japanese assistant. --Mitarashi-- Anko Mitarashi. I know of her... I would like for you to get close to her and learn more about her... fufufufufu..._

_—--Lord Vurudemuretu-- Your Master_

Not only was the Dark Lord rising once again... but he wanted him to befriend his assistant?-! This was... it was...It must have been a joke...

Severus Snape glanced at the Dark Mark on his arm. Since the summer began, it had been slowly growing clearer and clearer... It really must have been the Dark Lord.

* * *

**At the Sound**

"Fufufufufu... right about now, I suppose that Snape fellow is getting the letter from his master," Orochimaru laughed evilly.

"You must really despise that man and his associates," Kabuto said, readjusting his glasses. "To order him under that Tom fellow's name to... to get close to _Mitarashi Anko_ of all people."

"Right," the snake sannin said with a grin.

"Do you think you spelled his name right?"

"Who cares?"

* * *

(1) Yup. Hair pulling. That's what the shinobi have been lowered down to. Just add a bit of scratching, and then you'll have a catfight on your hands  
(2) A palm thrust, capable of being done out of arm's reach, which violently pushes the victim away with chakra, similar to the Hakkesho Kaiten  
(3) Ages from oldest to youngest:  
-Kurenai (30 or 31)  
-Shizune (30 or 31)  
-Asuma (30 or 31)  
-Ibiki (29 or 30)  
-Kakashi (29)  
-Anko (26 or 27)  
-Iruka (26)

* * *

**Thinking Corner and Other Junk**

OHMYGOD! I've killed another reviewer! Breath, cookie, BREATH! Aaah! ...Are you alive? o.o ((Oh my god, another reviewer, dead at my words. Somebody stop me!))

Anyway, since I am being held at wand point (glances nervously hellfire014) I am updating as fast as possible. Someone asked me how fast I type... well it REALLY varies. Sometimes it's just about 54 wpm. The highest that I usually get to is 83 wpm. Average? 70s.The highest I EVER got to was 93. Two stupid smart people in my class have 115 and something like that... showoffs, they make me cry.

Also, to answer another person's question: yes, I have thought of writing a book several times, but I never really felt like it. I mean, there are a whole bunch of ideas that pop into my head, but I never really want to get into characterization too much. Like, in a fanfic, it's already been characterized. Naruto's a clueless ramen lover with a talent for surprising people in battle, Sakura is the temporarily useless one who is only good at thinking, and Sasuke is the 'perfect' one without any friends. It's already been characterized. Writing a book would mean making characters, a character history, descriptions, the way their minds work, what they do, how they live, etc. That stuff is a lot of work for my head, but I could probably stand it. Buuuut, there would be the fact that 1) to get anything published, I would need money. For editors and making the books. And then if it doesn't sell well, then I'm screwed with no way to pay for it. There's also the fact that my parents might read it or something, and I wouldn't be able to stand that. Especially if my older sister read it or something... Yeah. Besides, actually writing a book would take a lot of time out of studying and stuff, even if it's only part-time, and if I went full-time writer, then I'm screwed because I have to be a doctor. ((ooh, med school is gonna take foreeever...))

Congrats to the Flower of the Sand for guessing Gaara's disgruntled behavior exact! As for Fleur, well... if the grindylows don't get her, the imposter will! Hah! That that, blondie! Actually no, I have other plans... As for Naruto's new technique, since no one got it, here's clue for you: Kage Bunshin + Kawarimi. (well, not really the substitution jutsu, but... whatever. Close enough. Yeah.)

I recieved two suggestions recently... (blushes thinking about it...) And... um... er...yeah... As for the yaoi, I already started this fic as SasuIno and NaruHina, but if you want, I'll try to make another fic like that... I really would preferred to wait until I was sure I wouldn't ruin it, since romance is not a strong spot of mine (you can tell, since it's been 18 chapters, I NOW start GaaSaku goo). Buuut, if you want me to start another fiction with NaruSasu, then IM me and we'll talk about it. Otherwise, I don't want to risk screwing up one fic. I'd be happy to do one with yaoi, since I've never tried that before. If you want, IM me and help me with a plot and I'll make a whole 'nother fic, just for you and other readers! -  
And uh...as for the lime suggestion (screw going pink or red, I'm turning _purple_ from embarrassment here). Anyway, I really am sorry about that... But I can't really help with that part. Because, like, my _little_ brother reads my stuff and... um... yeah. I don't think that kind of stuff is very uh... healthy for him... Because I don't really want him, like, getting into that stuff... especially at his age, you know? ...And, you know...if my parents see what my brother is reading, I'll get in trouble for, you know,introducing this not Teen-rated stuff to him, and then there'd be even more trouble because _I_ would be the one writing the stuff that is 'poisoning' my little brother's mind. Honestly, he's _xx_ years old, and they still refuse to give him the talk. They didn't give ME the talk! I got it from my sister, and, boy, was that awkward...  
ANYWAY, knowing my parents, if they learned I wrote either of these, they'd try to put me in therapy or something. Really convenient, as there's an asylum place right across from my school. Of course, I guess if I did write either one of those, I could always put it on another pen name. In fact, a very nice person gave me their pen name. He and I are working on a HP fic. Not a crossover. He gives me the ideas, I just write them. Teamwork! But I hafta say, I'm_ waaay_ more important. I'll stick to paper and pencil until I'm finished with the NAXHP xovers.

Oh, and one more thing. Anko's not really stupid, she's just acting that way to annoy the hell out of Snape. And to be funny. And to annoy Snape some more.

As for the Triwizard Tournament... you're right! It _does _happen every four years ((thanks, GirlLoki!)! But that made me think... just how old IS Hagrid? I mean, I know he's over 50 years old, but what the hell? He said something about how he "never thought he'd ever be able to see one again" or something like that. The Triwizard Tournament thingie has been banned for 400 years... Again? 400 years? That makes him, what, four centuries old? Happy birthday hagrid! Yosh, your birthday cake must be an inferno! O.o

And the jutsu Naruto uses... well, it's not a spy jutsu... well it _is_ but it's best suited for stowing away. Like how the Makoto's did! Only not. And Chouji the deadweight? So sad to put it that way, but I guess it's true in this fic.

You know what sucks about my writer's block? I'm not sure if it's what happens to everyone else, but when I get it, I am completely blank. It's like the calm before the storm. Only I don't want the calm and I want the storm. I know what I'm going to do in the next chapter, but there's a lot in the chapter that's coming up, but absolutely NOTHING in this one...

Oh, and SET JERRO: Oddly enough, I was going to do a scene like that, although Ino's new jutsus are a bit different now. You'll see! (heart)

Also another important message to INFINITE FREEDOM: sorry, but I don't think I can use the bloodline limit you suggested. I talked to two of my betas (not the internet ones, but my own friends from school and stuff) and they said that it didn't sound like the best idea and it would change the plot I had in mind, which is kinda sorta true... (scratches head) So uh...yeah, sorry about that. I could make a jutsu similar to that but no bloodlines for Harry... Poor pathetic kid who lived... He's really got nothing special about him...

And uh... do people actually want the chapters to be _shorter_? I never thought I'd see the day when I would read something like that, since I usually enjoy longer fics, but... meh. My ideas are getting shorter anyway. I was going to include the weighing of the wands in this chapter, but it I did, it would end up being, like, fifty pages long or something! Okay, probably not, since I don't have that much energy in me, but it'd be pretty long. Anyway, hope this chapter is to your liking.

Will Harry get his magic back? Just what kind of hell is he going to begoing through until this all blows over? What are the shinobi _thinking_, fighting amongst themselves in the middle of all this? Find out in the next chapter! Yaaay! (insert dramatic end song here!)


	20. Chapter 20

Gah! First someone points a wand at me, and now... a shot gun and a kunai. And then a Chidori and a Rasengan and a shuriken from another ONE person! O.O Aaah! I'm not gonna make the night...! Am I on a Wanted list? (I hope not, I look terrible in pictures...)) So _anyway_, what's next, a nuke? O.o ((I probably shouldn't have typed that... I'm gonna be giving you guys ideas... and then I'll be kunaied to death in my sleep. I'm an endangered species... -twitches and shudders-))

A WARNING TO THOSE WHO KEEP ON THREATENING ME TO UPDATE FASTER: If you kill me, I will die. (And if I die, I will be sad)

But I do like updating. It's worth all of the threats that tell me to update more because... I GET UPDATE CAKES! ((thanks, silver-crystal4ever!)) And I love them so much! Because imaginary/digital cakes taste soooo good!

* * *

Chapter 20: Hell is for Harry

The next days at Hogwarts were the worst ever for Harry. He didn't remember any year making him feel as miserable as he did now, except for his second year, when everyone was afraid of him because they had believed that he had attacked a countless number of muggle-born wizards and witches. He had gone through a several-month long isolation, but at least then, he had his best friend with him. But now, Ron wasn't even looking in his direction.

He could understand why Hufflepuffs were angry at him, even if it did feel rather unfair. He had just come up and stolen the spotlight once again. Slytherin always had something nasty to say to him. But Ravenclaw? He had hoped that some would find a speck of kindness in their hearts and would believe him when he said, 'I didn't do it'. Of course, what Harry Potter wants, Harry Potter does _not_ get. It seemed now that the Boy-Who-Lived was now the object of everybody's animosity.

He wasn't completely isolated from the school, however. Instead of what they had promised, the shinobi had moved his training schedule from once a week on Saturdays to every since day except for Sunday after dinner in the Forbidden Forest. Sucks for him. Harry never had a good experience in the forest after dark.

Let's see...he was attacked in his first year by a guy with a Dark Lord stuck on the back of his head. In his second year, he was nearly getting eaten by a Hagrid's giant pet Acromantula Aragog, along with his offspring. And in his third year, he even accidentally let that giant rat of a man Pettigrew return to Voldemort's side, which would, no doubt, probably lead to the resurrection of the Dark Lord. Yup. The Forbidden Forest really sucked at night.

And it wasn't getting any better. Harry knew that he probably shouldn't worry about any large man-eating creature eating him. Ever since he had started training in the forest, he had yet to see anything more harmful than a dead flobberworm. But that's not what he dreaded everyday as he took his time eating a sparse dinner. Not the giant man-eating creatures that roamed the Forbidden Forest after dark.

It was the training itself that he couldn't bear.

The shinobi weren't talking to each other very much. They were often reading and writing in some notebook instead. All of their notebooks looked alike and never seemed to run out of pages.

Shikamaru had a much larger version of it. At first, it had started off as a reasonable sized novel. Actually rather small, like a paperback short story, just like everyone else's. And then it got _thicker_. The book was growing. Slowly, so slowly that he wasn't sure at first that it really was bigger. But now, Harry was certain that Shikamaru's book was magical. It had grown to be the size of a textbook, though it had many blank pages to spare.

Harry often wondered what was in it to make the lazy boy work so hard and think so long when he read it, but the moment he leaned over Shikamaru's shoulder, he found himself unable to read any of the Japanese characters. After Shikamaru realized that Harry was trying to read over his shoulder, he gave the Boy-Who-Lived a look. It wasn't a glare like Gaara's or Sasuke's or Neji's, or even Kankurou's. It was more like a raise-your-eyebrows-and-stare-at-the-guy-watching-you-until-he gets-the-point. And so Shikamaru stared at Harry until Harry got back to work.

Sometimes, it seemed that the shinobi's new purpose in life was to make his a living hell. No, really. Because every day, his training got longer and harder. He'd return late at night and receive pitying looks from Hermione before retreating to bed without a single word. He must have looked pathetic, bruised all over with his hair even messier than usual.

It just didn't seem fair! He couldn't fight with his glasses on because when they fought, it seemed the shinobi whom he sparred with were constantly targeting and breaking them. So when he kept his glasses on, they would hit him and break them and he wouldn't be able to see anything. When he took them off, he couldn't see anything at all and then they would just hit him.

On Mondays, Shikamaru trained him. Temari often stopped by to watch and stay with them. Normally, Shikamaru taught him basic things like strategy and a touch of psychology so he could understand more about 'natural instincts' that people (and animals) have and he could predict what actions others would take next. Temari would occasionally add tips and details, such as the effects of taunting and other techniques of annoying the hell out of others to get them to 'lower their guard'. Or have fun. Something that Harry seemed to lack these days.

Naruto and Hinata were assigned to watch his training on Tuesdays. Of course, they were the nicer people of the group and often let Harry take a break and just hang out. Sakura would often stop by. She seemed rather gloomy sometimes, but it wasn't anything big. And normally after Sakura arrived, Gaara would as well, only moments after her. And with Gaara, Kankurou would come, complaining about two Ravenclaw girls—one floopy one and a bitchy one—following him around. As odd as it seemed that he had a floopy fangirl after him who couldn't quite be considered a fangirl, Harry found it even stranger that despite Kankurou's hardcore attitude, the sixth year couldn't even manage to break up with his girlfriend, the 'bitchy follower'. So yes, on Tuesdays, Naruto would get a train of people coming in and out of the Forbidden Forest.

Shino and Kiba trained him on Wednesdays. Kiba often sat around and played with Akamaru, often marking the trees with what seemed to be acidic piss. Shino was, to Harry's surprise, actually an interesting person to spar with. That's all Shino did. No running around the Forbidden Forest, no push-ups, no kicking trees. _Just_ fighting. And it wasn't too hard. Well, he was never able to beat Shino (or anyone else, for that matter), but at least he, unlike the others, didn't try his hardest to beat the living crap out of him. And when Harry was too tired, Shino would just start sitting back down against a tree, play with a few flies, and start writing in his notebook. Whenever he finished recording whatever he was recording, he'd continue to write on a spare sheet of parchment something else.

Kankurou was to train him on Thursdays, but he just made Harry throw kunai and shuriken at a target he painted on a tree. After fixing Harry's errors, he proceeded to opening several strange scrolls. When he did, several items and objects appeared. Out of one scroll was an assortment of odd gizmos, including screws, kunai, shuriken, and several pikes that were able to suddenly shoot out and grow to become over three meters long at times.

"Go play with your knives," he said to Harry when he saw him watching. Once Harry turned away, there was quiet 'poof' and another figure appeared. Only it looked like it was a person. It was a girl. The girl wore pale makeup and had sandy-colored hair like Temari's. The girl laid there on the ground, like a dead body. But then she began to move. Kankurou looked back at Harry, who turned around. Looking annoyed, Kankurou gave his attention back to the girl, but she disappeared. Odd, but Kankurou was often strange like that, right?

Tenten and Ino played with him on Fridays. Ino just watched. Sasuke sometimes came by, but not often. Ino sometimes just watched him train with Tenten. At first, Tenten spent the entire first hour correcting his throwing techniques. Apparently, there were several ways to throw a kunai, and all of Harry's were completely inefficient. According to Tenten, she was the weapons mistress of Konoha.

"Screw Kankurou," Tenten said to him. "He just plays with dolls. _I_ play with _real _weapons."

Sometimes, Tenten would call to Ino for help, but whenever she did, Ino just nodded and made a fist with one hand and placed her palm on top of it. She did nothing, but usually, Harry found himself accomplishing incredibly lucky feats. It was almost as if his body was moving on its own, and everything became pleasantly fuzzy. Otherwise, when he trained with Tenten and Ino, he was always rather strained at the end.

Sasuke and Neji were the cruelest of the cruel. Both were incredibly strong and talented when it came to their 'taijutsu' and neither seemed to have an ounce of mercy in them when they sparred. Sometimes Neji and Sasuke would spar against each other using what they called 'merely basic taijutsu' (which was still impressive anyway) and let Harry watch. It was fun, and they were amazing, but times like that were rare, as Sasuke and Neji both seemed to like beating him half-to-death instead. They called it training. Harry called it murder.

If you could say that he was in any way lucky, then it would be because several of the shinobi were no longer there. Most of Hogwart's professors' new assistants had disappeared, as did Lee and Chouji. Lee was one of the most painful shinobi Harry could fight, and, according to Shikamaru, Chouji was one of the strongest in terms of strength. At least he didn't have to train with them, as they had disappeared just after Harry's second weeks of training hell.

* * *

So far there was no reply from Sirius. Classes went badly. The only advantage to the harshness of his new training was that every day in class, he was too tired to feel as humiliated as he should have, considering the fact that he was still unable to do any spells. He had a slight grasp on Transfiguration, but as for anything else... 

Trelawney was predicting his deaths with more certainty than ever, and any progress in Professor Flitwick's Charms classes was literally nonexistent. If Harry tried hard enough, though, he could probably transfigure objects, although he could never focus hard enough in class to do so. But still, the easiest subject in school had now become his most dreaded class. His charms were abysmal. Aside from Neville, he was the only one to receive extra homework to practice his charms. What was worse that no matter how much he practiced, he couldn't get it any better.

"It's not really that hard, Harry," Hermione said, trying to comfort Harry as he hit his head against the wall. Repeatedly. "All you need to do is focus."

"Gee, I wonder why I can't," Harry said bitterly as several other Gryffindors entered the common room and immediately began to swarm around him, once again demanding and begging him to tell them how he had gotten past the Age Line. Won't they ever drop it?-!

It was already two weeks after he was chosen, and things weren't looking any better for him. Ron was still not talking to him. Gryffindors were still amazed. And almost everyone else in the school had the same thought in mind: 'Hate on Harry Potter'.

Harry loved the weekends. Sure, he had to train even longer, but at least he didn't have to endure classes with other students glaring at him like he killed someone. Just like what he was enduring right now.

It was Friday, and they had Double Potions. With Slytherins. And a room with Anko and Snape together in it. Oh the horror!

Harry and Hermione stood outside the doorway. Snape hadn't arrived yet, which would have been unusual, but ever since Anko had arrived, she was constantly making him late for _everything_. The Slytherins stood outside the classroom as well. All proudly wore a large badge across their chest. _SPEW_? No... Harry looked at their badges.

**SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY, THE REAL HOGWARTS CHAMPION!**

"Like 'em Potter?" Malfoy asked him with a smirk on his face. "And that's not all they do."

He pressed down on the badge on his chest, and the 'support Cedric' words disappeared, only to be replaced by...

**POTTER SUCKS!**

Soon, Harry found himself surrounded by 'Potter sucks!' and felt the heat go to his face. He took a deep breath, like Neji had taught him before he had turned into a boot camp officer.

_One...two...three... I am a calm lake..._

"Oh, _very_ funny," Hermione said sarcastically, as Pansy Parkinson and her troop of Slytherin friends laughed loudly. "

_Four...five...six... A cloud passes by overhead._

Ron was standing against the wall with Dean and Seamus, watching. He wasn't laughing... but he wasn't helping either.

_One...two...three...I am completely calm..._

"Want one, Granger?"

_Four...five...six... The cloud can do nothing to disturb my surface..._

"I've got loads. But don't go touching my hands though. I just washed it, you see? I don't want a dirty Mudblood sliming it up, you know what I mean?"

_One...two...th_—_.. ... ... ... NOT UNLESS IT RAINS...! _(I remember reading that somewhere... It may be from an old fanfic, it may be from something I wrote in my notebook near the beginning of this fic, I have no idea...)

Some of the anger that Harry had been suppressing for days seemed to burst through a dam in his chest. He instinctively reached for his wand before he knew what he was doing and what was happening. There was no going back no, with or without magic. People all around scrambled out of the way. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could see the damn shinobi standing around, acting all casual about everything, those slave-driving bastards...

"Harry, put the wand down," Naruto said.

"Screw you," Harry said, his mind set on one objective: find a way to put Malfoy through as much hell possible, even if he couldn't use most of his magic.

"Well I would," Naruto joked, "but it seems like you're screwing yourself over already, so I wouldn't. Now wand down or forty laps."

"Doesn't matter, I'll collapse before then," he replied.

"Go ahead," Malfoy said in a soft, taunting voice. "No one's here to back you up here."

"Hey Malfoy," the other blond said. "Do you _not_ see me standing here? I think I qualify enough for backup even if the redhead idiot isn't, unlike your two pathetically dimwitted underlings."

("Think he's talking about us, Goyle?" "Maybe, Crabbe... Well, nah, I don't think so.")

"So Malfoy insults Hermione and you just sit and watch while the guy you're jealous of is stuck standing up for another friend of yours...?" Harry heard Sasuke say to Ron behind him. "Some friend you are."

"Shut up, Uchiha."

"No. You know, they say that in times of chaos, one's true colors show. Is this yours? Because I think I see yellow on your back."

"Harry, wands down," Naruto said firmly. "Cause any trouble and it'll be fifty laps around the pitch."

"You said forty!"

"I changed my mind. "

"I don't really care right now!" Harry said.

"Harry..."

"_Furnunculus_!"

"_Densaugeo_!"

"_Asshole_!"

Three lights flared in the corridor, much to the shinobi's surprise. Naruto didn't cast a spell or speak any normal incantation and Harry couldn't, so what the heck just happened?

Two lights ricocheted off the other and almost bounced all around in the corridor, but another light, a larger one that wasn't a beam, enveloped it. It was a mix of reddish orange and blue and a few traces of a dark purple, coming from Naruto's right arm. The light from Naruto's arm had shaped itself into some sort of a giant claw and had caught both spells in its 'fist'. The clear-ish solidified form of energy was still transparent, and you could see the spells inside bouncing around at an increasing speed.

"Um...two questions," Naruto said. "How am I doing this, and how do I undo it without it hitting someone...?"

"...No ide—" Harry said, but he suddenly felt dizzy.

"Hinata," he heard Ino say. "His chakra?"

"Suddenly gone," Hinata replied as he blacked out.

* * *

Harry fell over next to Naruto, who freaked out at having his charge pass out in front of him at his feet. In his surprise, the giant claw had disappeared and the spells flew out at a high speed. One of them hit Goyle square in the face. He fell to the ground, clutching the boils that were growing larger and larger, looking rather painful. 

The other hit Hermione, who flinched and covered her face.

"Hermione!" Ron said, running to her to see if she was okay.

Naruto kneeled down next to the unconscious Boy-Who-Lived. "Holy shit we've killed him!" he yelped.

Hinata rushed over. (start stutter) "...N-no, he's not dead. It's chakra depletion. He stuck everything he had in that spell and it's all gone." (end stutter)

"But if you run out then you're dead!" Ino gasped.

(start stutter) "N-n-no, I said he isn't dead," (end stutter) Hinata said.

"What happened?" Kiba said, running over to them from the Great Hall. Akamaru sniffed Harry's head. "I thought I'd be late, but what's going on here?"

"No chakra," Hinata said, completely stutterless, used to talking to Kiba more than anyone else. "Ah...Anko and Snape are coming down!"

"Shit!"

"Gah! What do we do with the body?-!"

"Uh, hide it!"

A smoke bomb went off. Meanwhile, other students watching just looked confused.

"...Great, now we can't see!" someone said.

"What's going on?"

"Here, I've got Harry here!"

(start stutter) "Oh, Hermione, y-your teeth!" (end stutter)

They heard someone whimper in the smoke. There was another 'poof' and then a series of them.

"What is going on here?" Snape demanded. He waved his wand and the smoke disappeared.

"Potter attacked me, sir!" Malfoy said immediately. "He got Goyle!"

"Malfoy started it, sir," Ron said. "And he got Hermione—look! Wait..."

He had pointed at a girl with bushy hair, normal teeth, and an innocently confused look on his face.

"What do you mean he got me?" Hermione asked, her hazel eyes wide.

"Er..."

"Ten points off from Gryffindor for false accusations," Snape sneered.

"Not completely false," Anko said, pointing at a fox on the ground. "Animal abuse?"

The fox was trying to cover its own face with its paws. Its front teeth were growing larger and larger, which must have been rather uncomfortable, considering its growing teeth were quickly outgrowing the jawbone.

"Yeah!" Kiba said, pulling Akamaru up. "And he got... Akamaru!" The large dog was on the ground, unconscious. Harry stared at them for a moment but didn't do anything. "Animal abuse! I'm suing!"

Malfoy scoffed, hiding his surprise that his rival was conscious once again. "Ugh, for a sleeping mutt?"

"Hey, take that back!" Kiba said. "Akamaru was the best pick of the litter! I bet his blood's purer than yours!"

"A dog? Purer than me? I am a Malfoy!"

"And... Akamaru is a dog?" Kiba said to him, acting like he was confused. He grinned wolfishly at the Malfoy. "'Out-pured' by a dog. Pathetic."

Anko looked at them. She pet the unconscious dog and felt its forehead. There was a small jagged scar under the fur. "Kiba and... Harry. Go take Akamaru and that fox to the infirmary. Oh, and that kid on the floor with the fungus on his face... you could bring him too."

"I give the orders around here," Snape said.

"Be a gentleman," Anko said. "And obey this 'gentle-woman's' command."

"I'm the professor and you are my assistant. You don't give orders to me."

"You're a man, and men are beasts, but they are also beasts to be controlled by woman."

"Ah, a smart comeback."

"...What was that I hear? A compliment? From Snape? I must be hallucinating! It's a fever of 109! I'm dying! Maybe I'll go to the infirmary as well."

"No need," Snape said. "With a fever that high, I'm sure you must already be dead."

"Um... I'm going now..." Kiba said. He looked at Harry. "Come."

Snape looked at Kiba, and then Harry, who was eagerly jumping up and down towards Kiba.

"..." He made a face at the face of the Boy-Who-Lived. "No, stay," he said. Harry obeyed. "I did not give you permission to leave. Kiba, you may go."

"Nah, he's coming with me. Come."

"Stay, Potter." Harry stood still.

"Come." Harry stepped forward.

"Stay." Harry stood still.

"Come." Harry stepped forward.

"Stay." Harry stood still. He whimpered, looking at Kiba, confused.

"Co--"

"For goodness sake's Snape, just let him go," Anko said. Snape glared at her. "Gogogo!" she said to Kiba, who shrugged, saluted, and ran off with Harry, Akamaru, and Naruto's fox. Oh yeah... He came back and, after a brief moment of struggling, tugging, and pulling, he ended up dragging Goyle through the hallways, down the stairs, and towards the infirmary as well.

Snape glared at Anko. "Ordinarily, an assistant would not stoop so low as to issue orders against a professor's will."

"Ordinarily, a professor would not stoop so low as to curse his very lovely assistant to taste hot peppers whenever she ate or drank anything for a period of days."

"Well it kept you from eating. You could stand to..."

She glared at him. If he used the word fat, she was going to slap him. Again.

"...to...snack less in a Potions class," Snape said.

"...YOU WERE GOING TO CALL ME FAT!"

"Was not!"

"WERE TOO!"

"Was not!"

('Ah, not this _again_...' the class thought...)

* * *

"Alright, people," Anko said. "As you all probably know... Snape's not teaching right now." Several students snickered at this. He and Anko had gotten into yet another senseless argument, and Snape was forced to retreat back to his office after Anko cast a spell over him and... changed his robes into a vicious shade of orange. It was cruel, a prank that Anko had gotten from Naruto who had gotten it from the Weasley twins, and Snape was left unable to remove the clothing. But even this couldn't satisfy her sadistic, predatory instincts, as she was even more so agitated than usual by the snarky potions professor. 

"You'll be learning with me today!" she said enthusiastically, yet still holding the air of a boot camp instructor. She started writing down ingredients and instructions down on the board in rapid strokes. Pretty handwriting, but very few could really read it. "Who can tell me more about the Aging potion?" The Slytherin blond raised his hand. "Draco Malfoy?"

"It makes you age," he said, positive that he was safe from the sadistic tendencies of this rabid assistant.

"Ten trillion points off Slytherin for stating the obvious!" Anko shouted, throwing an extremely chalked up eraser at him. It hit him in the head and Malfoy fell out of his chair. "Next," she said, turning to the boy next to where Malfoy. "Vincent Crabbe! ...Same question."

"Duh...what?"

"Fifty kabillion points for not knowing the question!" Crabbe was next to go down.

Anko was moving down the row of Slytherins, knocking each down in succession to the other, as none knew how to answer that question.

"Parkinson?"

"Malfoy already said what it—"

"No arguing!"

"Ah!"

"Aburame!"

"..." -

"...Aburame?"

"..." -

"Uh...ahem, next! Uchiha!"

"Your appearance changes, your body stays the same," he said.

"Elaborate."

"No." She threw another eraser at him, and the class wondered just how many she had. Sasuke dodged it, a crimson gleam in his eye. She threw more erasers, and he evaded each one skillfully.

"What on earth is going on here?" It was Professor Snape.

He was wearing...lime green robes.

"I'm teaching," Anko said simply.

"You are assaulting students."

"I bet if I did it to Gryffindors, you wouldn't care."

"Mitarashi..."

"I'll prove it to you!" she said cheerfully. Anko threw an eraser at Neville. Snape glared at her. She threw another at Ron.

"That's enough," he said stiffly.

"You should try it sometime. It's fun and stress-relieving. And then you'll have less wrinkles around your face."

"..." -

"Well, you could have even less wrinkles if you smiled more." Was she asking _Snape _to _smile_? "Or at least frown less?"

"Ah, well maybe I'd frown less if I didn't have to face a countless number of idiots and you in every class."

"Yay, I'm not included in the 'idiots' group!" Anko cheered.

"Of course you aren't, it would be unfair to idiots if I did."

"...I'll pretend I didn't catch that bit."

"In any case, I demand that you tell me what sort of hex you cast on my robes."

"No."

"How long is this going to last?-!"

"As long as how long you spelled me to taste hot peppers whenever I ate food?"

"An hour. That's how long it was supposed to last. It has been thirty minutes past that time."

"...Oh. Sorry? Well, nah, pranks are fair game! All's fair in love and war!" Anko declared, but she suddenly stopped her taunting when Snape drew out his wand. "...Snape? Se...verus... right? Um... Wha—what are you doing? Like, that wand, um... stop pointing at that thing at me. Please? Um...like, please stop pointing that at me—ooow!"

"All is fair..." he said simply to the surly black cat glaring at him on the ground. "...in love and war, am I right?"

"Fsss!" the cat hissed. Students stared at this sight. A few of them snickered, and more laughed. Until Anko went ninja on their asses, flew in the air, and jumped on their faces, the definition of feline ferocity. Anko the Ninja Kitty!

"Mitarashi, stop that," Snape said. That cat, who was currently clawing Draco Malfoy's face, paused only for a second to hiss at him, her goldenrod eyes flashing. He reached forward and grabbed her back the back of the neck with a triumphant cry. She hissed and clawed at him, handing in the air, although she was unable to reach him.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Enter," Snape said lazily, shaking Anko around slightly, much to her dislike. It was Colin Creevey. "What do you want?"

"The champions are to go downstairs," Colin said. "It's for the Wand Weighing."

"Fine, you three go leave your belongings, you will all finish this class once you return," Snape said.

"Um, sir, they're supposed to bring their things," Colin said. "They're having their photos taken too." It was the exact wrong thing to say, and it was a good thing Harry was not there, because the tension in the room regarding the Triwizard Tournament incident tripled.

"Fine!" Snape said as Anko finally managed to land a claw on him. She immediately bit his hand and ended up flying up and down in the air. "Take your things and leave!"

The three shinobi quickly left the room, following Creevey out of the room.

"Er, where's Harry?" Colin asked them.

"Oh, yeah, we need to stop by the infirmary and the other classes," Sasuke said. "What class do Ravenclaws have?"

"Sakura and Shikamaru are in History of Magic right now," Gaara said automatically. "Kankurou's in Transfiguration. But I don't know Neji's class."

"Wow, you actually spent your brainpower memorizing the rest of our schedules?" Naruto said, looking a bit surprised.

"No."

"Where's Harry?"

"The infirmary," Sasuke said. "I said that we needed to stop by the infirmary, didn't I?" That was, as Sasuke was so unfortunate to find out, the worst thing possible to say to Colin Creevey.

"WHAT HAPPENED? HOW COME HE'S IN THE INFIRMARY? DID HE GET HURT? HOW DID HE GET THERE? IS HE GOING TO DIE—?"

"Creevey," Gaara said in a cold voice. "Shut. Up. Your voice is _aggravating_." Colin got very quiet.

They reached the infirmary, which was conveniently built close to the dungeons.

"I'll get him," Naruto said eagerly, running inside.

"And I'm staying outside," Gaara said with a shrug.

"Are you scared of the infirmary?" Colin asked him.

"No, I'm scared of the lady who keeps on trying to heal me and make me go to sleep whenever I'm within a fifteen foot radius of her," Gaara retorted.

"HARRY GETUPGETUPGETUPGETUP!"

"Okay I'm—aaugh! Hey, I said I was getting up!"

Naruto dragged a grouchy looking boy who lived out of the room.

"Got him," Naruto said.

"Hey, let me go, I'm not running away or anything," Harry said angrily.

"Let go, dobe," Sasuke said.

"Stop calling me that!"

"Deadlast."

"Bastard!"

"Idiot."

"Asshole!"

"Dork."

"Defect!"

"Ooh, that's low. Rather Slytherin of you, dobe."

"No, _that's_ low!" Naruto shouted, swinging at Sasuke, who backed away from him. "I'm no Slytherin!"

"You missed me," he said in almost a singsong voice. "Loser."

"I have a feeling this was part of an old argument," Gaara said as Naruto and Sasuke started to fight in the hallways ahead of them.

"You don't know?" Harry asked him in surprise. "Didn't you know them from before you went to this school?"

"I did. I met them all for the first time three years ago. And then I left. I'd say that the total time I've spent with them all can be summed up to two hours. And then later during the summer, we were all forced to share two rooms at the Leaky Cauldron together," he said, making a face.

"That doesn't sound to bad," Colin said.

"It is when the rooms are split between guys and girls. And when there are five girls sharing one room and ten guys sharing the other."

"Oh. That sounds a bit crowded." Harry asked.

"It was. We had a tournament over who would have the bed."

"Really? Who won?"

"For girls, it wasn't so bad. They just all moved the beds to make one big one and slept on it. But for guys, Naruto and Neji had to share one bed. Sasuke and Kankurou the other. Well, it was for a while."

"You didn't win the 'tournament'? The way everyone acts around you, I thought you'd be the one to win."

"I didn't fight anyone. I didn't need the bed anyway."

"Oh. So what happened later?"

"Well, Naruto kept on rolling over on Neji's side and would always end up sleeping on top of and tangling his hair, at the same time occasionally waking up to find Neji suffocating under him. And Kankurou and Sasuke have territorial issues and destroyed the second bed. ...Don't ask. So in the end, Kakashi—he had his own room but didn't really share—ended up taking away the beds and gave them futons and made them sleep on the floor. It was better. They were more used to it anyway, since we don't really have many beds, so yeah."

"Oh...So where to next?"

"Neji and Kankurou's classes. Transfiguration is closest, I think. I don't know Neji's class."

"Okay," Colin said, "but shouldn't we separate those two? Naruto and Sasuke are getting kinda violent?"

"No," Gaara said. "According to Sakura, this is less violent than it used to be. Anyway, she also said that if they're acting more normal around each other like this then whatever 'rift' grew between them is probably growing smaller."

"What rift?" Harry wondered as the two friends continued to beat each other up around the hallways. "I don't see any rift..."

"Yeah...I guess it's all nonexistent now..."

* * *

I deleted the rest of when they get the others scene because it just took too long and was pointless... to the Wand Weighing!

* * *

Colin left the shinobi and Harry and wished them good luck, much to their relief. That boy was annoying. The classroom that they entered was a bit small. Most of the desks were pushed to the back of the room. Bagman was talking to a witch wearing lime green robes. As usual, Viktor Krum was standing off to the corner of the room, but sitting nearby were Cedric Diggory and Fleur Delacour, who were involved in what seemed to be an intense conversation, speaking in low voices. The moment the Hogwarts students stepped into the room, all eyes were on them. 

Fleur spotted Neji and smiled sweetly, as if her day had just gotten better (and it probably did). Neji spotted Fleur and gulped nervously, as if he was facing his worst nightmare (and he probably was).

Bagman saw all of them and grinned, bounding towards them like an eager dog. "Ah, there they are!" Bagman said happily. "The champions of Hogwarts, come in, come in—"

"Well we're trying to," Sasuke said, "but there's an idiot in the doorway."

Bagman didn't say anything in response to Sasuke's comment, but he did move out of the way so they could get inside. "Ah, this is only the wand weighing, so there's no need to be tense," he said.

"We're not tense," Gaara said, glaring at the man for thinking that the kazekage of Sunagakure was _scared_.

"What's the wand weighing?" Harry asked.

"We have to check that your wands are fully functional, as they are your most important tools in tasks ahead," Bagman said. Kankurou snorted at that comment. "The expert inspecting your wands is with Dumbledore. And then there's going to be a photo shoot."

"Ah, great," Naruto said. "I don't look good in pictures. Does anyone else not look good in pictures? Anyone? This sucks."

"Not funny," Sasuke said.

"Yes I am," Naruto replied.

"Ahem, _anyway_, this is Rita Skeeter," Bagman said, pointing at the lady wearing the shocking green robes. "She's doing a small piece on the tournament for the _Daily Prophet_."

"Maybe not that small, Ludo," she said, her eyes fixed on all of the champions with a hint of evil in them. Her hair had some elaborate and curiously rigid curls that contrasted offly with her heavy-jawed face. She wore jeweled glasses. The thick fingers clutching her crocadile-skin handbag ended in two-inch nails, painted crimson. They all felt an eerie chill crawl down their backs. "I just wonder if I could have a little word with Harry before we start? All of the champions, you know... to add a bit of color?"

"Certainly!" Bagman cried. "That is—if they have no objection..."

"Er—"

"Lovely," Rita Skeeter said, and all of a sudden, the nine champions found themselves crammed inside a broom closet.

"What the fu—?" Sasuke said when there was a loud 'thunk' of a head hitting the stone wall. "Ow! Who hit me! Who stuck there friggin' elbow in my face?"

"Hehe, oops...sorry 'bout that," Kankurou sneered, not sounding sorry at all.

"Cozy isn't it?" Rita asked them.

"..." Neji, who had Fleur leaning uncomfortably close to him, made a face, although it was left unseen in the darkness. But then it lit up as several candles floated in the air, illuminating the...broom cupboard.

"You do realize that this is a broom closet, right?" Kankurou asked Rita.

"Of course," she said. "But it's so noisy out there."

"Okay," Kankurou said, sweatdropping. "Just wondering if you knew..."

"None of you mind if I use a Quick-Quotes Quill, do you? It leaves me to talk to you normally."

"...Huh?"

She took a green quill out of her crocodile-skin purse and placed it upright on a piece of parchment, where it stood balanced on its point, quivering slightly.

"Testing...My name is Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter."

_Attractive blonde Rita Skeeter, forty-three, whose savage quill has punctured many inflated reputations_—

Everyone in the room who spotted these words sweatdropped. They had a bad feeling about this.

"Great," she said, ripping off the top of the parchment, crumpling it up, and stuffing it into her handbag. She grinned at them, revealing three gold teeth.

"So, Harry, what made you enter the Triwizard Tournament?"

"Er..."

_An ugly scar, souvenir of a tragic past, disfigures the otherwise charming face of Harry Potter, whose eyes_—

"Ignore the quill, kids, it's nothing new," she said firmly. "Now, why did you, all of you, decide to enter the tournament?"

"Ze honor of ze school depends on me, and I zink zat I am ze best candidate out of all of them, right, Neji?" Fleur said.

"If you say so then it must be true," Neji said stiffly, doing his best to subtly pull his arm out of her grasp.

_Fleur Delacour, a rosy Beauxbatons student, represents 'girl power'. Neji Hyuga her partner and current boyfriend in this tournament, is_—

"And what about you, Mr. Diggory?"

"I want to do my best and represent the Hufflepuffs," he said proudly. "And I suppose Slytherins will get to show their good sides, too, eh, Sasuke?"

"Hn."

"A very talkative boy, there, aren't you?" Rita said almost to herself. "What made you choose him out of all the others?"

"Why is it that you make me sound like an animal?" Sasuke said. She ignored him.

"Um, well, Kankurou was glaring and um, well, he doesn't seem like a bad guy," Cedric said.

"And you, Harry? Why did you choose to join in on the fray?"

"I didn't choose," Harry said firmly for the umpteenth time. "I never put my name in that Goblet, and I don't know how it got there either."

"Oh, don't be like that," Rita said. "Everyone loves a rebel."

"But I didn't—"

"So, I hardly know any of you," she said. "Tell me about yourselves. Harry, we already know, but what of you Japanese students? I looked up as much information on you as I could, and I hardly got anything worth knowing. According to Dumbledore, you were all to be exceptional geniuses, but I found nothing of the sort in your files."

"Our files? What files?" Sasuke said.

"The ones in the Ministry of course," Rita said, with a sense of superiority. The shinobi were all glad they took Shikamaru's advice and rewrote their history and profiles.

"Oh, um... Who first?" Naruto said nervously. The shinobi were somewhat hesitant to share any details of their pasts, although their corresponding champions seemed especially interested.

"Hm, who is Gaara and Kankurou?" Rita asked. Kankurou and Gaara looked up.

"That's us," they said.

"Ah, tell us more about your family. I read something about your father in there. Your family. Do tell."

"Our father was, um..." What did he and Gaara write down again? Luckily, Gaara remembered what he wrote.

"Our father was 'governor' of Sunagakure, a hidden village in Japan, like Hogsmeade. It's from the desert. He was a bit important. Useless, but smart and good enough to train us in our magic."

"'Was'. That's past tense. I heard about a death a few years back," she said.

"Yeah, he was assassinated," Gaara said in a casual voice that made everyone shudder.

"Oh, um, so what of your mother? And she had a brother too, right?"

"Yeah...my mother died when I was born. And my uncle's a...a nutter."

"Oh, is he still even alive."

"No. Aren't you uncomfortable with my answers yet?" Gaara asked Rita, annoyed that she was still asking questions.

Rita got the point. "Alright, Neji? What about your family? I've seen that you have a big one."

"There's just one Main family and many smaller branch families. I have a lot of cousins."

"Why are you're eyes white? Are you unable to see?"

"I can see."

"Oh. Okay. Name a few cousins. Describe them?"

"...I don't know their names. Too many to even try to remember."

Naruto laughed at that.

"You're a very talkative guy."

"No I'm not."

"That was a joke, Neji," Rita said to him. "What about your parents?"

"Dead."

"Ah... Does anyone here not have a dramatic past involving dead parents?"

"Oh! Mine doesn't!" Naruto said.

"Oh? Then tell me about your childhood," she said eagerly.

"I was the greatest prankster in all of Konoha! I was the only one able to paint the hokage mountain. The first and the last! Of course, after me, there was some kind of law in Konoha saying that anyone else who tried to do it would have all statuses as a shinobi removed."

"What's a shinobi?" Rita asked.

"Hah, freedom!" Neji said suddenly, pushing past Viktor and away from Fleur. A split-second later, the door opened and everyone tumbled out of the broom cupboard.

"Eh, hey, Mister Dumbledore," Naruto said as everyone got off the ground. "Thanks, it was getting a bit stuffy in there."

"Ah, Dumbledore!" Rita cried, with every appearance of delight. "How are you? I hope you saw my piece over the simmer about the International Confederation of Wizards' Conference?"

"Enchantingly nasty," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling. "I particularly enjoyed your description of me as an obsolete dingbat." Naruto snorted.

Rita shrugged, not looking even remotely abashed. "I was just making the point that some of your ideas are a little old-fashioned, Dumbledore, and that many wizards in the street—"

"I will be delighted to hear the reasoning behind the rudeness, but I'm afraid we will have to discuss this matter later. The Weighing of the Wands is about to start, and it cannot take place if every single one of our champions are trapped inside a broom cupboard with you."

Five of the six judges were sitting at a velvet-covered table. Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxima, Mr. Crouch, Mr. Bagman, and Jiraiya were joined by Dumbledore. Rita Skeeter settled herself in a corner, and the champions sat together in the center of the room.

"May I introduce Mr. Ollivander?" Dumbledore said. "He will be checking your wands to ensure that they are in good condition for the tournament.

Harry looked around and saw a pale-eyed wizard standing by the window.

"First the champions, I'll inspect," Mr. Ollivander said. "Mademoiselle Delacour, could we have you first, please?"

Fleur Delacour handed him her wand.

"Hm..." he said, twirling the wand between his fingers like a baton. It emitted a number of pink and gold sparks. "Yes...nine and a half inches...inflexible...rosewood, and containing...dear me..."

"An 'air from ze 'ead of a veela," Fleur said. "One of my grandmuzzer's."

"Ah, yes, yes, I've never used veela hair myself. It makes for rather temperamental wands, but to each his or her own, and if this suits you..._Orchideous!_"

Many flowers burst from the wand tip and fell to the ground.

"Very well, very well, it's in fine working order. Next, Mr. Diggory."

Cedric stood up at the sound of his name.

"Ah, now this is one of mine, isn't it? Yes, I remember it well. Containing a single hair from the tail of a particularly fine male unicorn...must have been seventeen hands; nearly speared me with his horn after I plucked his tail. Twelve and a quarter inches...ash...pleasantly springy. It's in fine condition... You treat it regularly."

"Polish it every night," Cedric said with a grin. Harry and Naruto looked down at their own wands. Harry's had finger prints all over it and Naruto's had large cracks and had spontaneously broken several times in the school year. Mr. Ollivander sent a stream of silver smoke rings across the room from the tip of Cedric's wand, and pronounced himself satisfied. "Mr. Krum, if you please."

Viktor got up and thrust out his wand and stood scowling, with his hands in the pockets of his robes.

"Hmm, this is a Gregorivitch creation, no? A fine wand-maker, though the styling is never quite what I...however..." He lifted the wand and examined it minutely, turning it over and over before his eyes. "Yes...hornbeam and dragon heartstring? Rather thicker than one usually sees...quite rigid...ten and a quarter inches... _Avis!_"

The hornbeam wand let off a blast like a gun, causing several people in the room to jump at the sound. A number of birds flew out of the end and through the open window into the sun.

"Good. Which leave the last of the champions, Mr. Potter."

Harry got up to his feet and walked past Viktor to Mr. Ollivander, handing over his wand.

"Aah, yes, yes, how well I remember..."

On Harry's eleventh birthday, he had to try what felt like nearly every single wand in the shop until, at last, he found the one that perfectly suited him. This one was made of holly, eleven inches long, and contained a single feather from the tail of a phoenix. Harry never shared the fact that the phoenix tail feather had come from the same phoenix that had supplied Voldemort's wand. It didn't seem like it was something that should be told to just anyone. He was fond of his wand, and as far as he was concerned, its relation to Voldemort's wand was just a just an unfortunate coincidence that couldn't be helped, like him being related to his Aunt Petunia. However, he really hoped that Mr. Ollivander wasn't going to tell the room about it. He had a funny feeling that Rita Skeeter's Quick-Quotes Quill would explode with excitement if he did.

Mr. Ollivander was smart enough not to toss that information out to everyone in the room, but he spent a much longer time examining Harry's wand than anyone else's. Eventually, he made a stream of wine shoot out of it and handed it back to Harry. It was good enough.

"Next, the assistants," he said. ("Hey, that sounds so much better than 'partners'," Naruto commented. "Neji H-Hyu...ga," he said, unsure of how to pronounce the name exactly for a moment. "Mr. Hyuga?"

"That's me," Neji said. He stepped forward and handed Mr. Ollivander a wand.

"Hm...these are my standard wands."

"What?"

"Your silver-haired friend asked me to give his students, whom I am assuming to be you, wands, and as none of you were there, I was unable to give you the wands that would suit you the best. I'm not sure whether this wand fits you well enough, as I only gave you the standard wand that may not even work well enough. Same unicorn tail, same length, same rigidness. You ought to be the one to perform the spell, so I may see if it fits you."

"_Inanimus conjurus_," Neji said, and conjured a rock.

"Very creative," Sasuke commented.

"Shut up, Uchiha."

"Next, Cedric's assistant, Sa-su-ke Uchiha," Mr. Ollivander said. "Same wand, I suppose?"

"It's Sasuke. The 'u' in it is silent. And yes, the same wand."

"Then I shouldn't expect much of a difference—"

"I don't use that wand," Sasuke interrupted.

"Oh? Then whose wand is it that you use?"

"My own. It suits me better," Sasuke said, handing it too him.

It was a pale ebony wand that Sasuke had given Mr. Ollivander. Harry had seen dark wands that were almost black and very light brown wands, but never before one that was the same color of a bone.

"...My, this, this is a work of beauty. A horrifying beauty. I've never seen a wand built like this ever before. How on earth did you do this...?" Mr. Ollivander asked him.

"Just a thought. And a very large snake I found one day."

"...This is a basilisk bone. Ordinarily, no one would have been able to do this."

"I guess that makes me a nobody then," Sasuke said.

"Ah...I suppose this is fine then. Cast a spell, if you please?"

"Hn..._flagrate_." Sasuke drew a dark red flame of what looked like a balloon.

"Oh, and that's more creative?" Neji said.

"Yes. It is."

"Next. Gaara Sabaku?"

"My wand is plain and it works fine."

"Well then there is no harm in showing us what you can do?"

"_Aguamenti_," he said. A thin stream of water sprayed out and put out Sasuke's flame.

"Hm...almost satisfactory. Next, Mr. Uzumaki?"

Naruto jumped forward and grinned, about to wave his wand when Mr. Ollivander's eyes widened and his hand shot out to snatch away the wand.

"What on earth happened to this wand?" he demanded.

"Um...I don't know," Naruto said. "What are you talking about?"

"It's broken! No one can possibly have enough magical power to crack a wand once, let alone four times!"

"Um...oops?"

Mr. Ollivander frowned. "Obviously, this wand does not fit you correctly. It may be well suited for massive spells, but do not even attempt _simple_ Charms."

"But I can do it!" Naruto whined.

"No you can no—" Mr. Ollivander jumped back as there was a deafening 'bang' and he was gone. Did Naruto blow himself up?

No, he was sitting on the ground, glaring at the wand, which had snapped in half a second time. But a moment later, there was another cloud of dust and it was fixed again. Harry remembered the other shinobi talking about it once. Like, and 'hedge jutsu' or something...

"All better now," Naruto said cheerfully, but Mr. Ollivander shook his head.

"No, no, no," he said. "That will not do, you've only hidden the harm, not fixed it. We need a brand-new custom-made wand. One that is much more durable, since you seem unable to control any magic you have."

"I'm last," Kankurou said.

"Oh, yes," Mr. Ollivander said, forcing his pale eyes away from Naruto. "Kankurou Sabaku. Wand?"

"Standard."

"Ah, good. A spell."

"_Levo motionem_," he said, casting a spell on Naruto on the ground, who began to move strangely.

"H-hey, what the hell?" Naruto said as a string of curse words flew out of his mouth as his body began to move on its own. "Kankurou, I'm kicking your ass once you stop, so you better not!"

"Says the puppet on my strings," Kankurou snorted.

"_Finite incantatem_," Mr. Ollivander said firmly, dispelling Kankurou's self-learned spells.

"Oh crap," Kankurou said.

"You're dead!"

"It has been decided," Mr. Ollivander said. "On November fourth, three days from now, Gaara and Naruto will be returning to my shop to recieve _proper wands_."

"What?" Gaara said. "I understand Naruto, but why me?"

Bonus chapter

"Is he here yet?" Wormtail asked Voldemort desperately.

"No."

"Are you sure he's not here yet?"

"Yes."

"Is he coming here soo—?"

"Wormtail, if you ask that question one more time, I swear to Grindelwald I will _crucio_ the living shit out of you."

Wormtail whimpered as Madoka entered the room, knocking over a few chairs and tripping on the rug on the way.

"Ah, Vory, are you threatening Worumy again?"

"Again with the nicknames?"

"I am telling you, I can't pronounce your names correctly. My accent is all Japanese!"

"You don't speak with an accent right now!"

Madoka shrugged, bumped into the wall, and decided to sit on the floor. "So who are you guys waiting for?"

(start stutter) "Waiting for? What are you talking about?" (end stutter) Wormtail asked.

"You asked Vory, 'Is he here yet—?'"

The door suddenly swung open. There was a temporary moment of silence. From one side of the room, you had relief and curiosity for this new visitor. From the other, you got hesitation and worry.

"...My lord?" the new person said.

"_Another_ underling?" Madoka asked Voldemort and Wormtail. "Well where's _he_ been all this time?"

"Who are you?" the other underling asked.

(start stutter) "This is Madoka, an overseer of our activities," (end stutter) Wormtail said. (start stutter) "She was sent by an ally of the Dark Lord."

The three men went to the other side of the room (Voldemort was carried, as he was a tiny thing and it would have taken forever to wait for him to walk across the room).

(start stutter) "Please take her away." (end stutter)

"I don't get what's going on."

"Orochimaru... my ally...has sent this blind nuisance to oversee our plans and send back reports. You, take her away and take care of her, because from this moment forward, we refuse to do so."

"But, master, shouldn't you keep her so she does not report anything harmful about you?"

"Which is why you will do this or die."

"Fair enough."

"Have her come back for monthly visits when she makes her report. Otherwise, I wish to never see her again."

All of a sudden, there was a loud wailing in the background. The new person winced.

"What's that? What is she doing?"

Madoka held a blank sheet of paper in her hands and was crying out loudly. Next to her was some kind of messenger bat. At once, the new person ran over to her and took the paper, trying to read it only to find that it was full of small bumps in it.

"...This is a letter?"

"K-K-Ku..." she hiccuped. "Kuro...k-kun...HE LOST SNUFFLES!" She let out another ear-splitting wail.

"Uh..." He pat her on the back nervously and glanced at Wormtail and Voldemort for support, only to find that they were celebrating on their side of the room at finally managing to get rid of their human-sized pest.

'Take...her...away...' Wormtail mouthed to him. The man hesitated before helping the girl to her feet and leading her out the door. He looked back at his master to make sure he wanted to do this. Voldemort never looked happier (in this body, anyway). And so, Madoka was taken from Riddle Manor.

"Are you sure he is up to the task, my Lord?" Wormtail asked Voldemort.

"He should be. He's already got one pesky child, and he manages."

"But he sent _his son_ to a boarding school in another country!"

"Heh. As long as he doesn't end up killing the girl."

Madoka, realizing that she was being taken away, screeched loudly in his ear, attracting a lot of attention from the locals.

"Oh my god, I'm being kidnapped!" she cried. "I'm blind, I lost Snuffles, and I'm being kidnapped! Today really sucks! No! You are _not_ sending me to a glue factory! I'm not going to be eaten!"

"Girl, please," the man said disdainfully, "I'm not sending you anyway. You will be staying at my manor where you will be treated hand and foot by my house-elves."

"What are house elves?"

"...They are servants." God good, he was stuck taking care of a Mudblood!

"Oh. Heh. I'm Madoka. Who are you again?"

"Lucius Malfoy."

"Hehehe..."

The older Malfoy frowned, unsure whether her faint giggle was one of nervousness of being in a new environment... or a sign of an evil and spite greater than that of Voldemort himself that had yet to come.

* * *

Okay, so here's a review of what basically happened. (Sorry, this was the best I was able to type at the moment. The Spring Break bug bit me and I'm busier playing a computer game since I can't think of what to write for this chapter.) 

1) The smarter shinobi (Sakura, Shikamaru, kinda Hinata, a bit of Neji) are trying to understand what the heck went wrong in the Forbidden Forest experiment. They have cut the options down to a) the Hyugas completely screwed up when it came to sealing his points and did something completely opposite, or b) the side effects were misinterpreted and it would cause Harry to lose his magic until he completely ran out and could develop chakra, which 'may turn out' to be a more compatible, advanced version of the wizard's magic. Like... um... ninjas are the 'evolutional form' of wizards.

2) Hermione _did_ get hit by Malfoy's 'densaugeo' hex. They just switched her and Vikki so that Hermione wouldn't have a record of missing class. Basically, what Kiba did with Akamaru and Harry. No real point to that part. EXCEPT if you actually think about what I wrote (for those who read and don't think), it's a sort of hint that even though Vikki's a... a thing of pure chakra, molded into the form of a fox, it can still use chakra, but there's another effect when it tries to do certain things, although I'm not saying! Hah!

3) The reason as to why the shinobi are 'fighting' amongst themselves... I'm not sharing! The mastermind shares his plans in the next few chaps.

4) Naruto has too much chakra and too little control for an ordinary wand to channel his energy. Also, it's not even meant for chakra, which is like an 'advanced' version of magic. Gaara has a lot of chakra too, but he has more control, so his wand is just a little off. Naruto has too little control and, as you read, has broken his wand several times throughout the school year so far. His wand is going to be a little different. I was also considering giving the other shinobi (minus Sasuke, who already fixed his own problem) new wands, since the length of the wand is proportional to their height, but I was like, 'nah, that'll just make things a bit complicated later when they get to Diagon Alley.'

Sorry, this chapter is a bit dead. Anyway, I'm just wondering... How many people think I'm a guy, and how many think I'm a girl? Because the girls on ffnet really really outnumber the guys.

Oh, I've been having a lot of weird dreams lately, and Ninja Kitty was one of them, so I made it 'Ninja Kitty Anko!'. Originally, I didn't have a few of these plans, so their still a bit rough around the edges, but I couldn't help but stick some ideas in here.

And whoever can guess what one of Kankurou's newest puppet is, I will do whatever they want to any character they want, so long as they don't kill that person off. Or, if you can't decide what you want to do, I will reveal to you one random spoiler in my fic.

I would like to thank BasicallyAnIdiot for helping me with an idea that I'm not telling you yet and apologize to set jerro for not following through with some of his suggestions. Because 1) I'm not a Hermione-basher or anyone-basher so I won't beat anyone up or kill them if it doesn't serve a purpose (unless its humor, but only if it's humor that pleases a wider audience), and 2) I don't know what the heck you are talking about with Hinata, 3) I don't know what you mean about teaching Harry about hitting ninjas with spells for Naruto's revenge and 4) the shinobi may humiliate Malfoy in any way they want so long as they do not publicly beat the hell out of him. And although Shino doesn't really talk much, you will read something more of him, although you may not recognize it until later.

* * *

Hyper Chef has given me an idea. I saw an episode of Naruto, featuring Ryourinin! (Is that spelled right?) Anyway, what if one is brought to Hogwarts...? Just a thought. Because that Ryouri-nin is going to drive the house-elves up the wall. One thing: if you are half joking, that means you are half-serious, so I am taking you half-seriously. If you really want a cooking ninja... then a name, age, and gender, please! 

Aznelements: no, this is the first you've ever reviewed. And your name was so hard to spell... until I realized it was like, azn (SPACE) elements. and then I'm like 'Ooooooh!'

And to the Anonymous reviewer who mentioned the target and Tenten and YYH: thanks! I had come up with an idea like that one and had given it to another person, so I couldn't really use it because I don't want to things that are exactly alike, buuuut, you gave me a new idea and I love you!

Brandon: I'm glad I inspired someone, but... a rabid tennisball?-! Aaaaah! I'mItBitMeI'mDying! (but don't worry, I'll still write)

* * *

And a useless announcement: I'M A CLERIC! I played MS, and now I'm a cleric! In the NakedLeague guild! Although some bastards KS me and my brother. What a downer. I finally get past level 30, and then some level 80 assholes completely destroy my newfound pride. T-T Waaaah! Oh screw it, who cares? I'm a cleric! 

ANYWAY, sorry about the slow update. Now that school is starting again, I think I might update faster. I mean, whenever it's the weekend, I play MS, but during school in classes, I write the fic in my notebook and just retype it during lunch. Yeah. I feel like a loser lol. Anyway, this chapter's short, I'll try to make the others longer.

* * *

And I'm reallyreallyreallyreallyreally sorry for several things! I didn't wait for my betas to finished editting my chapters! I mean, first I sent the e-mail without the rough draft, and then when I resend it, I'm like "OMG I FORGOT IT'S SPRING BREAK THEY'RE PROBABLY NOT EVEN THERE!" So if it wasn't spring break for you, then I'm sorry I didn't wait for your response. If it was your spring break/vacation, sorry for interrupting it. (of course, if you editted it anyway, please don't hesitate to send it to me. I'll reedit this chapter, since it needs as much help as possible.) 

ALSO, I was going to add a part with whoever Madoka gets stuck with, buuuuut...I forgot. I mean, I thought of the whoooole scene and wrote it down on a sheet of paper around three or four in the morning (I've been staying up really late recently) but... it's somewhere in my room. And it's dangerous in there. So I tend to stay out of it unless I have to. I'll probably get it by the next chapter, so you'll find it in Chapter 21!

Hm... I really need to continue the other fic...


	21. Chapter 21

Hm, a game! Sasuke's the target! Ten points if you hit him, a hundred if you chalk up his face!

Anyway, I uploaded the sidestory chapter with Madoka and her new babysitting slav—ahem, _friend_ in chapter 20. Yes. _Friend_. Make sure you read it before you get confused later when all of a sudden, she's not with Voldie anymore and she's...somewhere else.

DEATH! YOU'RE ALIIIIIVE! (a paradox...) Anyway, I don't see why Hinata can do whatever she did and not Neji... well, that's cool anyway. I just like Neji better. But only because he is totally more awesome. But more awesome and better are pretty much the same, so what the hey, it doesn't make a difference and those two previous comments don't make sense. Anyway, I don't think Sharingan can copy bloodlines, so it's all just Hinata's. Yay, she has something of her own! (wipes brow in relief until I find...) "Oh no! I killed Al's best friend! Aaaaah!" Seriously, does that make me a serial killer now?

Update pie, eh? Reminds me of a random quote: "In the presence of pie, there can be nothing wrong."

Anyway, there was a reviewer who said 'yaaay, almost sirius's chat with harry' or something like that... um, you remember, i had to change the dates. that'll probably be in a few more chapters. Anyway, Siri's convo with Harry took place on November 22, and the interview was about two weeks _before_ it.

Oh, and I love this review: "...my guess is guy 'cause I'm a guy and there needs to be more guys on so with the power of my mind and quantum physics, YOUR A GUY!   
if your not, thats cool to..."  
Haha.

(FYI: This is later in the evening after the wand weighing, still Friday)

Chapter 21: Halloween Prank  


"You know, you aren't supposed to be in here," Gaara said to Naruto.

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked him.

"In the Slytherin House."

"Oh. Since when have we started listening to the rules here?" Naruto asked Gaara with a grin.

"I never broke any of the rules."

"Well, they do say no fighting in the hallways. Technically, you didn't fight anyone. You tried to kill them, mostly in their sleep. There's no fighting back when it comes to you, Gaara," Sasuke commented. "Naruto, I asked you to bring more Gryffindors," he said to the blond. "As in everyone you can bring in as possible."

"Yeah, they're all coming as soon as they finish their work and stuff," Naruto said with a shrug.

"Don't you have any homework to catch up on?" Kankurou asked Naruto, turning around from his desk to face him.

"No."

"Oh. Well be quiet anyway, I'm trying to think."

"_Really_?"

"You're not one to act surprised," Kankurou said. "I'm not the only one who lacks intelligence around these damn geniuses."

"Ah, you think I'm a genius," Temari said. "I'm so happy!"

"Shut up, Temari."

"No."

"Why is everyone in here?" Gaara asked.

"Ah, well we're having a small 'shinobi-only meeting'," Sasuke said.

"...You're doing this to piss of Malfoy again, aren't you?" Gaara said.

"Of course," he replied. Frowning, he activated his Sharingan for a split second. "Hey, you guys don't suck at infiltration after all," he said.

There was a loud, constant popping sound and the room was suddenly full of twelve shinobi and they all moved to a comfortable place in the room, perching themselves in chairs, beds, and a windowsill for Sasuke.

"So what happened?" Kiba asked Naruto. "At the wand weighing thing? Was that Fleur girl there?"

"Yeah!" Naruto said. "And she's part veela too! Her grandma was one, so, um... she's um...one-half veela?"

"One fourth, Naruto," Sakura corrected.

"I bet that means she gets really ugly too," Tenten said bitterly.

"I'm not into pretty girls," Neji said. Tenten slapped him. "Ow! What was that for?"

Ino laughed at them. "Neji, you just don't know how to talk to girls, do you?"

"I talk to Tenten," he said, holding up Kankurou's textbook to block a rain of flying shuriken. ("You're paying for that book, Hyuuga!")

"Tenten, please stop that," Ino said. "He only means that he isn't into bimbos. Like, girly-girls who can't stand on their own two feet. You know that."

Tenten shrugged. "You're ruining my bad mood," she said.

"Well, I would prefer it if you kept it quiet," Shino said, looking up at them only for a moment. Once everyone settled down, he went back to reading and writing.

"Psst, Shino's been writing a lot hasn't he?" Naruto said to Sakura. "Think he's got a girlfriend?"

"Don't be stupid, Naruto," Sakura scoffed. "Shino's not the type to attract...well, maybe."

"No way," Ino said. "I know all the couples in Hogwarts, and Shino's not one of them. Hinata. What's he writing?"

(start stutter) "If Shino doesn't want us to know what he's writing, then I shouldn't look at it," (end stutter) she said.

"Ooh, I wanna know!" Ino cried, excitedly. She moved her hands, but Sasuke shook his head.

"No possessing each other, please," he said. She giggled when she looked at him. Sasuke sighed. Well, it was his fault he had a bubbly girlfriend anyway.

"Let's get down to business now," Shikamaru said. "First: Harry again. Hinata says that he cast magic in the hallways when fighting with Malfoy, correct?"

(start stutter) "Yes." (end stutter)

"But he wasn't able to cast anything before."

"Yeah," everyone said.

"Anyone notice any other changes?"

"His energy completely changed," Neji said. "It's more like ours now. But it moves around throughout the whole body. It's color is still like a wizards. It also seems a bit more mobile now."

"So... Harry's making new magic now?" Temari said.

Shikamaru shrugged. "In a sense. Like I said before, it's a purge. It's like turning on a bathtub and opening the drains. The water goes down, but not fast enough to completely empty it. An certain amount of water entering the tub and an equal amount of water exiting it. Nothing is going to happen. Charms require too little energy, and Harry lacks the control to let out only enough to activate a charm. Like Naruto. Naruto and Harry have no control. The fact that they both have a large amount of energy stored in them makes it even harder. When you try to let out a little and can't manage it, you do either one of three things: you don't do anything at all, you blow something up, or you oversuccessfully manage to pull it off. Harry's at the first, Naruto's the first and second and—"

"Oversuccessfully?" Kiba echoed. Was that a word?

"For instance...take the Summoning Charm for example," he said. "You could either not manage to even move the object. Or maybe just a tiny bit. You could blow whatever you're trying to Summon up. Or you can have it fly at you so quickly, it'll knock you down and out. Actually, I suppose Naruto's managed all three of them, hasn't he...? That crack in Flitwick's door was from his Banishing, right?"

"It was an accident," Naruto said.

"Yeah, and the imprint next to it was when you Banished Kiba, yeah?"

"That wasn't an accident..."

"I hate you Naruto. That time, it really hurt."

"Alright, alright, but anyway, so the 'newer water' in the tub is like the new energy that takes over."

"That doesn't sound good," Naruto said.

"Well it's not bad. It's just there," Shikamaru said. "In any case, you can expect some improvement in his training, though not his magic. But one of us is going to teach him chakra control. I have him on Mondays, but Temari and I teach him strategizing. Naruto, you are _not_ teaching him chakra control. Your rasengan is nice and all, but you have to have another kage bunshin help control it for you. And no you are not going to show him how to use the Kage Bunshin. Making one is risky enough. Making a shitload like you would kill most ninjas. Tenten and Ino are giving shuriken and kunai lessons. Shino and Kiba help him learn to rely on basic instincts and taijutsu. Neji and Sasuke show him taijutsu styles, help him develop his own, and keep him from getting a big head, so that leave..."

Everyone looked at Kankurou, who noticed this and looked up at them himself. "What? No. No way. I am not teaching that guy chakra control."

"You're not teaching him at all!" Temari said, whacking the back of his head. "All you do is play with your dolls and let Harry do whatever he wants.

"But...I don't know chakra control. I have it and make strings, but I can't just, like, show him how to make chakra threads..." he whined. "I'm busy."

"No you aren't. You've been working on that letter for how many weeks now? Just break up with her!"

"She's like a tick! She sticks to me no matter what!"

"Talk quietly," Gaara ordered. He, Shino, and Kankurou were each working on something. Not together, but both were busy enough with their own projects. Shino was, as usual, writing some sort of essay. He had a copy of _Witch Weekly_ in front of him, for some odd reason. Kankurou was still working on his break-up letter to his obsessive girlfriend. although he was currently caught up in the conversation the moment they mentioned him. And his new task. Gaara... his owl was constantly flying in and out of the school every hour with messages from the Makotos and he often received letters from the Sand. He opened yet another letter, this time neither from Mikoto, Mariku, nor Baki and Fuji. He glanced through it.

"Naruto, the wand thing is tomorrow."

"But the weird Hyuuga-man said—" Naruto said, but Gaara cut him off.

"I don't care what he said—" Gaara said, but Neji cut him off.

"For the last time," Neji said irritably, "Hinata and I are the only Hyuugas in this world. Just because he has pale eyes does _not_ mean he's a Hyuuga. Harry has green eyes and so do Sakura and Gaara, but are any of _them_ related? No, see—?"

"Yeah, but Harry doesn't have red or pink hair?" Naruto said cutting him off. "And how many people have eyes like that—"

"Nobody cuts me off!" Gaara shouted and everyone in the room cringed. "Ignore me like that again and I promise to whatever old guy these people worship that I will _kill_ the _next_ _person_ who _cuts_ me _of_—!"

"We're sorry," Sakura cried, cutting him off. Another person! Gaara took a deep breath.

"It's fine," he said in a strained but still relatively calm voice. "But it's _rude_ to interrupt people when they are talki—"

"Oh my god!" Temari cried out, cutting him off _again_. "Gaara forgave her! He forgave someone!"

Gaara didn't say anything for a minute. He just sat there with his arms crossed over his chest, taking quiet deep breaths. He wasn't moving to kill anyone. That was good. Except for the fact that after several years of experience, he could control most of his sand minimum movement.

* * *

**Outside in the Slytherin Common Room**

Girls were constantly lurking in the Slytherin common room nowadays. As usual, it was filled with students who were trying to study and finish their work, students plotting against Gaara and his mail, and students who were stalking Gaara, Shino, and Sasuke.

It was always quiet in that room, the room that the Japanese students had to themselves instead of their fellow yearmates. It was mainly so silent inside because the people in that room were quiet themselves. Shino rarely spoke unless he absolutely had too. He even hardly ever uttered a word, even when called on in class. It wasn't that the Aburame was shy. It was just that, if he spoke, then he would be completely out of character and lose most of his 'coolness'. Kankurou was the bully in there—the louder one. But when he was with Gaara, the more frightening of the two who never spoke unless he was threatening someone. Kankurou was quiet with Gaara, like what Crabbe and Goyle were to Malfoy. Only he was smarter than Crabbe and Goyle combined. And his 'Malfoy' was Gaara who was not a useless pain in the ass who faked injuries. Sasuke was always quiet. He watched, but said nothing.

The boy's dorm for the Japanese students was always quiet, save for the times when Temari came in and she and Kankurou fought. Of course, when they did fight, they'd step outside of the room and fight in the common room, where they wouldn't break something of their own. And where it was safer, since Gaara may get annoyed and try to toss them out the window like last time.

Otherwise, their room was the quietest room in the entire school. But the thick silence that day was suddenly broken by panicked screams.

"AAAAAH!"

"Gaara! Please stop it!"

"You were nice for just one moment! It's so nice to be around you when you're nice!"

"Please don't kill us!"

"I just became a chuuuuuniiiiiin!"

"_We_ didn't interrupt you!"

The screaming continued for several minutes.

Two students glanced at each other for a moment.

"I don't understand what's going on in there..." the first said.

"...and I don't really want to," the second said, finishing the first's thoughts.

* * *

"Okay," Temari said, holding her hands up as if it would help save her from Gaara's sandy wrath. "Now we all know..._don't_ interrupt Gaara when he's talking..." 

Sand that covered the floor was retreating back into the corner where the empty gourd of sand lay.

"_I_ already learned that," Kankurou said. "Instead, I was attacked and _Sakura_ wasn't."

No one said anything as Gaara brainstormed for an excuse. Any excuse. "_She_ apologized," he said.

"But I didn't do anything!" Kankurou whined. "I was quiet and sat in my corner and did my work!"

Gaara shrugged. "But you're still an easy target. That, and some of you provide amusing prey with the high-pitched voices you scream in," he said, staring at his brother, Neji, and Kiba.

"I'd tell you to shut up," Kiba said weakly, "but you're not Naruto, I'm not Naruto, and you might try to kill me again."

"And why was I a target?" Shikamaru complained. "I'm the one who's brain this mission depends on."

"Yeah, but you're brainwashing my sister. Do I need another reason?"

"_Mendokusei_..." Ugh... dating Temari pretty much meant agreeing to any target practice her brothers wished him to be a subject of.

"What else?" Tenten asked them. "Oh yeah, Gaara, did you figure out what your friends made Harry sign?"

"Nope. When I ask them, they only say it's a summoning contract. When I threaten them with death, they pass out, wake up, and say, 'what summoning contract?' It's frustrating."

"Talk about it," Kankurou retorted. "When they hid Karasu, they were like, 'oh, there is a crow in the sky right there!' And the moment I turn away, they run for their lives. Those damn twins."

"You do realize that Mariku and Mikoto are not twins, right?" Temari said.

"The point that I'm trying to make is that all three of them are as annoying as hell," Kankurou said.

"Oh, that weird orange claw thing that Naruto made," Ino said. "What the hell was that?"

Naruto shrugged. "No idea. I got pissed, said asshole, and it came out."

"What, so 'asshole' is some kind of wandless incantation for a spell?" Sasuke said incredulously.

"You wanna try it?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke held up his wand uncertainly. And then he stuck it back in his kunai pouch. "Nah," he said.

"Good," Shikamaru said. "Because it's not a spell, or any kind of wandless incantation. It is literally a lot of chakra. Tell me, what is different about Naruto from now and, let's say, before he went to the sand and became a chuunin."

"Easy!" Naruto said. "I'm a chuunin now!"

"No, you idiot," he replied. "Not your _status_."

"Um... I might have grown a bit..." Naruto stood up next to Sasuke and sat back down, sulking. "Nope..." he said sadly. "Still shorter."

"Baka..."

"Naruto hasn't changed at all," Shikamaru said. "But..." He grabbed Naruto's arm and pulled him into the middle of the shinobi circle. "Look."

"Ow. Yes, I have a hand, Shikamaru," Naruto said. "Sorry, but I don't hold hands with guys—"

"Idiot! Chakra beads!"

"What are those?" Naruto asked.

"They eat at your chakra," Shikamaru said. "It's—"

"They _what_ at my chakra?"

"Think of it like a version of Shino's bugs," he said with a frown. "Shino's bugs eat his chakra and stay inside his body. It's like a contract. Shino sacrifices a certain amount of chakra and, in return, receives control over the thousands or millions of insects nesting in his body."

"I don't want things living inside of me!" Naruto whined. "I'm not a house!"

Shikamaru sighed. "The beads don't live inside of you. There are certain magic crystals in this world that absorb energy. Pearls, actually, are a weak version of them. Those beads are like super-charged pearls. More commonly found in this world rather than our own. It's rarer that the Makoto's had given Naruto such a thing, but I met them last week. They're not brilliant like that. Here, these are considered magic-absorbing crystals."

"I think I get it," Naruto said, "but—"

"Don't interrupt, I'm on a roll here," Shikamaru said. "Now...damn, I lost it. Okay, so the beads absorb your chakra... yeah. They take in your chakra, like a...storage. They store your chakra away. With enough control or whatever you used in the hallways, you could release the chakra and create whatever shape you need."

"Like what I did in the hallway!"

"No, not exactly, but it's close enough," he said. "You're probably one of the few who have enough chakra to actually fill up the beads, considering you have, what, twenty-four of them on there? Anyway, you need to learn chakra control with Harry and Kankurou."

"What?" Kankurou said. "I never agreed to that!"

"But you will," Gaara said.

"Fine..."

"Okay, we need to cut this short before curfew starts," Shikamaru said. "I updated the Shinobi Chronicle from parchment to a book. Limit your notes to one page a day. Less if you don't have enough information. Naruto, you report for your animal too. Update at least once a week if possible. I have the 'mother' book. Everything you write will be copied and transferred to my own. Try to keep it in Japanese. I don't want too many people reading our work. I have sent a request to Dumbledore for a list of every single student in Hogwarts, as well as one to Maxime for her students and Karkaroff for his. I am also looking up information on Dumbledore's current staff.

"There are too many books in the library for me to read in one school year, so I have here a list for each of you to research. These are books on spells, charms, and potions. Look up each and if there is any information on Confundus Charms, spells to change appearance, affects minds, anything. Don't be detailed. Just write down the name on the first several pages, which are reserved for things like this. First page is charms, second is transfiguration, third is potions, fourth is dark spells, fifth is miscellaneous. Write it like a list. Small but legible, please. When you write the name of the spell or whatever, it rearranges itself to move in alphabetical order, so make sure no one has already written it down before you. Don't write everything down at the same time. Write one spell, wait for it to rearrange itself first before you break it. I spent time working on the magic of these books, and if you break it, too bad, you write on a separate piece of parchment.

"And when you write it in the book use a pencil. I cannot stand these damn quills. To submit an entry, tap the page five times with the top of the pencil. If for some odd reason you can't do so, you could always bite your thumb and leave an imprint of your thumb on each four corners of the page. Am I clear on all this?"

"No," Naruto said hesitantly. "Not really." Ino nudged Hinata.

"Hinata'll explain it to you later," she said.

"That's all for today. But I kept the original pieces of parchment of our Shinobi Chronicles list. They'll now be communication parchments. Each of you have one. We talk to each other from long distances with it. Don't lose it. There's no submit button. It's like talking, only on paper. So if you stop in midsentence or word and leave it that way for several moments, we'll assume you dead or attacked. It automatically erases after ten minutes. If you want to go back and read your conversation, you can scroll up and down. To save it, tap it and say, '_imitatus sum_'. This way, we don't have to communicate face to face. It's could be like a private conversation or a chat room. Try not to bump into each other in the hallway, or if you do, start something. Not a big fight, just show aggression. And Neji, I'll need your list of reactions from the Great Hall. Are you almost finished?"

"No. How about you try to memorize everybody's expressions after only a second's glance?" Neji asked irritably. "Nevermind. You probably could."

"Yeah," Shikamaru said. "So is that all for tonight?"

"That's all," everyone said eagerly, getting up.

"Thank god," Naruto said. "I've had enough of this thinking stuff."

* * *

**Saturday, Halloween Morning **

Naruto woke up with a huge grin on his face. He looked at the clock on the wall. 6:00. Well, he was supposed to get that wand today. He had plans for today, but with this whole wand weighing junk, he had to move it up earlier in the morning. He crept into another dorm.

"Harry," Naruto said, poking the boy. "Heeeey."

"No...no more training," Harry muttered in his sleep.

"Screw that," Naruto said, "I'm borrowing your broom."

"Okay..." he said, turning over and going back to sleep. In the Common room, Naruto hovered slightly on the broom and headed towards the girl's dorms. Careful not to touch the walls and alert the castle that there was a boy in the girl's dorms, he slowly floated up the stairs.

"Ino..." Naruto whispered innocently. "Can I borrow something of yours? Pleeeaaase? I wanna surprise someone with something."

"...Okay," she said, turning over in bed. "Jus' go 'way..."

Naruto, careful still not to touch the floor, hovered on the broom, rummaging around in Ino's trunk with her clothes in it until he found what he had been looking for. He grinned from ear to ear, already with his plan in mind. The ultimate prank.

Naruto put Harry's broom back in his room and crept out of the portrait, careful not to wake anybody at all. He ran down the castle towards the dungeons and to the Slytherin room. He said the password, 'Parseltongue' and the wall opened up. Naruto ran through the doors and...

Ran into Gaara.

"Aagh!" Naruto shouted, falling backward. "Ow... what are you doing awak—oh, yeah, it's you. Never mind."

"What are you doing in here?" the kazekage asked him.

"Playing."

"Oh." Gaara frowned. Did he _want_ to know what Naruto was doing with that box?

"I'm going to use your bathroom," Naruto said. "Can you make sure no one comes in?"

Gaara raised an almost nonexistent eyebrow. "...Sure," he said suspiciously, with a hint of curiosity. What was this guy planning? He must have clogged the Gryffindor toilet, the idiot.

Naruto locked the door tight and Gaara kept a watch for early risers. Like Malfoy, who would wake up at ridiculous hours in the morning just to wash his hair. About thirty minutes later, Temari had woken up, and Shino was as well. The fangirls were stalking the corners of the common room, but they were paid no attention. Temari and Shino regarded him Gaara strangely, watching him guard the bathroom like an angry sentry.

"Gaara, what are you doing?" Temari asked. "I need to use the bath—" She gasped. The bathroom door had opened. "Oh...my...god..." she whispered, her face pale. The sand kunoichi looked faint, and Shino was too horrified for words.

Gaara was almost afraid to turn around. He did anyway. Temari: O.O... Shino: -.-... Gaara: **O**.**o**

What was the cause of their horror? Gaara twitched.

"Na-Naruto?" Temari said. "Is that you?"

"Sorta. Do I still sound like me?"

"Yes."

"Oh." The _pale_ boy cleared his throat. "Ahem... _fufufufufufu... How about now_?"

"That's...just...perfect..." Shino said in both amazement and fear. This was so... weird.

"If I ever fall asleep, this is what I would have nightmares of," Gaara said. Naruto now had pale—almost grayish—skin, long black hair, and dark rings around his yellow eyes, almost like Gaara's, but only sharper and more defined. But that's not what frightened the three normally stoic shinobi the most. It was because 'Naruchimaru'...was wearing nothing but... but lilac colored, satin bathrobes. He had a bad feeling about this.

"Hey, can you guys do me a favor?" Naruto asked.

"Just...just as long as it doesn't involve any skin contact whatsoever," Temari said, backing away from him.

"Yeah, yeah, it doesn't," Naruto said. "Okay, I'm going to each something, and you're casting _'impedimenta'_ on my tongue."

"What?"

"Yeah. Just a weak one. Only my tongue, alright?" Naruto said. "Oh, and Shino?"

"...?" -

Naruto grinned. "We're going to need pictures of this. Lots and lots of pictures."

* * *

Sasuke couldn't tell if he was awake or not. He was currently laying in bed, sitting there with his eyes closed, just thinking. It was starting to get chilly. He should start sleeping with a shirt on. 

"Saaasuke-kuuun," a familiar voice crooned. Sasuke, who had been sleeping peacefully in bed just moments before, stiffened at the sound of That Voice. No, no, no, it was probably just Ino... Just Ino. Ino with her creepy man-woman voice. _Yeah_. 'It was just Ino...' Sasuke thought. 'Either that, or this is just a horrible dream...'

But Sasuke's denial was cut short as he _felt _'something' licked his arm.

"Wake uuup, Sasuke-kuun (heart)..."

That sounded like Sasuke's 'You-know-who'.

"...Come rub lotion on my baaack..."

"Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Sasuke shouted, jumping out of bed. Damn, is was that damn...pasty... Sannin snake-bastard...! At Hogwarts!

"Aw, Sasuke-kun, don't run awaaay," the pale 'Sannin' cooed, chasing after Sasuke. "Come baaaack!"

Sasuke ran away with a 'fufufu'-ing snake sannin following closely behind until... all of a sudden, there was aloud high pitched squeal, resonating throughout the Slytherin common room. Uh oh...

"Naruto," Gaara said in a low voice. He, Shino, and Temari were in the corner, watching Naruto pull the prank on Sasuke. "That was cold, even by my standards. You _killed_ him. I could crush people with my sand without a second thought, but that was undeniably cruel." He shuddered at Sasuke's fate. Death by fangirls. Ugh...

"Eh?" Naruto looked out into the common room, where a countless number of girls were jumping Sasuke. Crap...he was right... And then Sasuke was going to come back to kill him.

"Wha's goin' on...?" Kankurou muttered, sitting up. The first thing he noticed the moment he opened his eyes was the satin robes. "...Hm..." And then he saw the pale '_man_' wearing it.

"Orochimaru!" Kankurou said, as he took out his large scrolls from under his pillow, bed, and covers.

"Eh? No, don't kill me, it's me!" Naruto shouted, backing away. "_Me_!"

"...Sarea?" Kankurou paused and then shouted melodramatically, placing the back of his hand on his forehead. "Oh my, you're a _man_! I can't believe you lied to me. How could you! Now I have to break up with you!"

"Uh, no. It's me. Naruto."

"Dammit, Naruto! I almost broke up with her too!" he groaned. "What are you _doing_?"

"Um... I was trying to play a prank on Sasuke," Naruto said hesitantly. "And I think I may have killed him."

"Hn?" Kankurou looked outside at the man-eating, Sasuke-glomping crowd.

"I don't think I _want_ to know what they're doing to him," the blond sighed, hearing Sasuke's screams.

"Ah, I always told him he should sleep with his shirt on..." the puppeteer said sagely.

"Haha, so it's _not_ my fault then."

"Actually, yeah, it is."

"I am so dead."

"Or Sasuke is," Temari added, not very helpfully.

"I'll save him!" Kankurou said. "Hey Shino, you don't have anything expensive or breakable on you, do you?"

"...Aside from Creevey's camera, no."

"Good." Kankurou grabbed 'Shino's' camera and his top layer of coats, pulling them off all in one motion, as he kicked the off guard Aburame out of the bedroom and into the common room. More girls let out screams like a supersonic explosion as Shino, without his top layer safely covering his face, made his appearance to the public, the first time _anyone_ here had ever seen him completely without the top layer.

"..." Naruto wasn't sure what Kankurou had done exactly, or why he had done it, until he saw that the girls were everywhere. They were scrambling for their cameras, away from the crowd as Shino and Sasuke, with disheveled hair, scrambled back into the room on their hands and knees with a manic, fearful look in their eyes as they slammed the door shut and locked it with a spell. For extra protection, they both barricaded themselves inside, using Kankurou's bed, the bookshelf, and Gaara's desk. Gaara inconspicuously removed a box from his work table. People kept on finding it. Luckily, no one ever paid any close attention to it. Where should he hide it now...?

"Naruto," Sasuke said in a menacing voice.

"...Kankurou," Shino said, almost inaudible. Although you could barely hear it, you could literally feel the anger emanating from him. Or maybe it was just the swarm of insects raging inside the human beehive.

"H-Hey..." Kankurou said, nervously, backing away. "It...it was for both of your good! I mean... Sasuke needed help out there and you were the perfect distraction!"

"And you can't blame me! I haven't played a prank in forever, and I was just about to burst from that!" Naruto said. "It was a do-or-die situation, I swea—!"

"How did you do this?" Sasuke said, somewhere between calm and psychotic, his red eyes gleaming. "My sharingan does not work with this genjutsu."

"It's makeup," Naruto said, eager to lead the Uchiha's attention away from what just happened. "I got it in Sunagakure. And um..."

"..." There was a brief scuffle, and then...

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Naruto and Kankurou's screamed echoed throughout the school.

* * *

"Those idiots..." Gaara muttered under his breath, leaning on the wall outside the infirmary with Sakura. "They're so... idiotic." He shook his head, annoyed that he couldn't come up with a better comment. 

"Hey, that's circular logic," Sakura said, joking. "So _what_ happened in there?"

"Naruto pranked Sasuke," Gaara said. "And Kankurou tossed Shino out into the common room without his sunglasses and his coat. Now look." Kankurou was completely swathed in bandages, unable to escape the wrath of the two shinobi.

Sakura paused and looked inside one more, finally understanding why the blond was brought unconscious to the infirmary wearing nothing but satin lilac robes and grayish, smeared makeup with a three foot long tongue lolling about outside his mouth. That was when she realized what had happened.

"My god..." Sakura sighed. "He ran into the Slytherin house... dressed as Orochimaru."

"Naruchimaru," Gaara said with a shrug. "It sounds less..."

"Evil?" she said with a smile.

"I was going for weird, but yes. Evil is fine."

"...How on earth can he sleep with that thing in his mouth?" Sakura said. "We should take it out."

"I would advise not to," Gaara said. "That's his real tongue."

"...Oh."

"_Zzzzzzzzz_..."

Gaara glanced back inside the room and Naruto, and then the clock, and shook his head. Naruto's leg twitched a bit. He snorted in his sleep. Irritated, pale green eyes glared down at the sleeping target.

"A_ny_ minute now..." he said. The fire turned green. "We need to go now, I guess," he said to Sakura. With a wary eye out for Pomfrey, he quickly walked inside the room and, after shrinking his massive tongue, lightly covered his face with a pillow. Naruto, suddenly cut off from his precious air, woke up with a start.

"Aaaaaah!" Naruto shouted, suddenly seeing Gaara there, believing he was trying to kill him. It was a perfectly reasonably response, considering Gaara had been a mad killer before. "What are you doing? It's Saturday!"

"Do you not remember anything that happened this morning? This is the second time you've woken up, and the first was of your own accord."

"...Oh yeah!" Naruto said excited, laughing about his Halloween prank.

"Get up."

"Why?"

"Does _this_ remind you of anything?" Gaara asked him picking up Naruto's wand off the night table. It was snapped in two places again, with on end dangling by a thin splinter of wood.

"Mm...Sorry. No."

"You're getting your stupid wand today," Gaara said impatiently. "_Up_!"

"Ugh, now I know how Harry feels when _we_ drag him out of bed," he muttered, pulling on a white T-shirt with the Leaf symbol on it. "But yay! I don't have to dress up!"

"That shirt is disgustingly plain," Gaara said disdainfully.

"And yours is disgustingly black," Naruto replied, not at all offended by Gaara's look of contempt. "Anyway, do you want me to go back to orange and black?"

"Stick with the T-shirt," he said.

"You went back to your old robes?" Naruto asked Gaara incredulously. Gaara looked down at his outfit, the same he had usually worn at the Sand.

"They are much more durable _and_ comfortable than my others," Gaara said stiffly.

"Well, I'm not sure about comfortable, since you've got that giant gourd hanging on your back, but I know they're durable alright. That Deidara dude blew you up, and it was still in one piece, even though you weren't."

Gaara just shrugged, still a bit touchy about his 'resurrection'. "I wasn't the one 'in pieces'. It was my face. And the sand armor."

"Eh. Yeah, that always looks creepy. I didn't see it anyway. It must've been a pretty damn good fight," Naruto said cheerfully as they left the common room..

"The fire's green. Let's go," he said, ignoring Naruto's question. He was a ninja. Did he really need to explain? He and Naruto, went through the fire, expecting to end up in Dumbledore's office when, instead, they found themselves entering another room, this one filled with dusty racks of boxes.

"Gah!" Someone was there! Oh wait... it was just that wannabe Hyuuga.

"You boys are luckier than most," Mr. Ollivander said, walking out from behind a rack. "Dumbledore's paying for both your wands. Now, wand arm?"

"Huh?"

"Writing hand, Naruto," Gaara said to him.

"Oh."

Naruto and Gaara lifted their arms and found themselves having a measuring tape flying through the air, taking several measurements.

"Hm, okay, a ten and a half inch for you," Mr. Ollivander said to Naruto, "and a eleven inch for you," he said to Gaara.

"Hey, why is his wand is longer than mine?"

"He's taller than you. Wands are made proportional to the user's height," Mr. Ollivander said, leading them down a row, labeled "10-11".

"Nuh-uh! I grew! I'm taller than Gaara! Or at least we're the same height! Look!" Naruto said, standing in front of Gaara, putting a hand on top of his own head and trying to evenly reach for Gaara's to measure their heights.

"You're hand is going down," Gaara noted, somewhere between amused and annoyed (1).

"Take a wand, and give them a swish," Mr. Ollivander said.

"But I _grew_," Naruto said sadly, picking up the first wand under 10 1/2 inches. He waved it. A shelf from the back of the shop collapsed. "Hey, Mr. Ollivander, I'll take this one."

"Keep on going," Mr. Ollivander said.

"You're average," Gaara said impassively. "Just be glad you weren't as ridiculously short as you were before, the shortest in your team." He waved a wand. Someone outside the shop screamed. Gaara made a shocked 'Oops-I-didn't-(mean-to)-do-it' face and put it back in the box and mercilessly crammed the box back into the shelf.

"Hey, you were the shortest on your team too!" (Bang!)

"Ah, pardon me for being smaller than my _older siblings._" ("Aaaah!")

"It's not as if you were that much taller than me anyway," Naruto muttered. "What, it was a one inch difference?" (Crash!)

"I don't think I was _that_ short." (Bam!)

"How tall were you when we first met? I was four feet nine inches." ("Help!")

"I was four feet ten—wait..._dammit_." ("Someone get us a medi-wizard! This man is dying on us!")

"Hah! I'm right and you're wrong!" ("What the fuck?" a familiar voice said.)

"Well, there's a first for everything," Gaara said thoughtfully. (Bash!)

"That was mean," Naruto sighed. (Fwoop?)

"That's enough!" Mr. Ollivander said hastily, after almost an hour of destruction and chaos.

"But we haven't found anything that isn't destructive yet," Naruto said.

"And I have a feeling that should I allow this to continue, more destruction shall ensue," he said. "I know..."

He reached forward and grabbed a strand of Naruto's hair, pulling it out. "Ow!"

Mr. Ollivander went for Gaara's only to have been stopped. He pulled out his own hair, making sure it didn't hurt himself in any way. "You wouldn't like the results if you brashly caused me pain yourself," Gaara warned. All of a sudden, they were shoved out of the wand shop and onto the streets where injured people laid on the sidewalk, victim of mysterious attacks, waiting for the mediwizard to heal them. Naruto and Gaara exchanged guilty glances.

"_Stay_," Mr. Ollivander said. He waved his own wand, and the doors swung shut, the windows closed, and the room inside went dark.

"How degrading," Gaara said. "What are we, dogs?"

"What are we supposed to do?" Naruto said. "Sit outside?"

Gaara frowned, seeing a familiar dark-haired stranger pacing in front of the Magical Menagerie. "I'm not sitting or waiting for nothing," he said. "Come on."

"Why?" Naruto followed Gaara, who walked up to the unsuspecting victim and grabbed a handful of hair.

"Aaah!" the person screamed.

"Gaara! He didn't do anything to— ...Kurogane?"

"What the fuck?" he hissed at them. "Who the hell do you think you ar—Naruto? Gaara?"

"We specifically ordered for you to stay with the Makoto girls," Gaara said firmly, not relinquishing his hold on the older boy's hair.

"You guys don't know what it's like being under their...their servitude! Do you know what I went through in that little hellhole? They made me clean up the whole goddamn place, and they tested their products on me, and... and they..." he shuddered. "They dressed me up..."

Gaara winced, but shook his head. "I'm Kazekage, and my word is law," he said, almost feeling sorry for the older boy.

"Only to the Sand!" Kurogane insisted. "I'm not from the Sand! Technically from the Sound. But that's not even the reason I left! I mean, I've gone through worst things than _that_ before. It's just that...I, um...Madoka..."

"What happened?" Naruto asked.

"Who's Madoka?"

"His girlfriend—"

"My servant! ...Ex-servant. Whatever"

"Same thing, I guess."

"So what happened?" Naruto repeated.

"I, um, I kinda lost her dog," he said. "And she got mad at me. And she sent back a letter for me. I really think she's angry. The letter yelled at me and blew up."

"And what does that has what to do with this?" Gaara asked.

"Well, I left to find a dog that looked exactly like hers. I sent her the letter yesterday, by the way. I gave up. People kept on saying there is no kind of dog like that. Only some grim thing."

"Well why didn't you go back?"

"I decided I would make one last stop," Kurogane said, pointing at a trashed looking building. "But something weird happened. I was about to enter the Magical Menagerie place, and then the hole front part of the building collapsed on me. I mean, it just suddenly fell. It was a miracle I came out in one piece, you know?"

"...Oh." Naruto and Gaara guiltily looked away.

"You'll go back to Hogsmeade," Gaara ordered. "But there is one thing left that I need to talk about."

"What?" Naruto asked.

"Kurogane. You're purpose is to bring together Jinchuuriki?"

Kurogane paused, trading glances with Naruto, who looked a bit nervous. "Yes," Kurogane said uncertainly.

"Out of curiosity, who have you gotten so far?" Gaara asked.

"Um, the Nibi Nekomata, Haruka. I was planning on getting her. And then she was taken by the Akatsuki. And killed. And later cremated," he said. "Um, I was approaching Shichibi Kaku, the contained inside Deikuon. But then he was killed too. And later cremated. And then I was going to approach you. But then you were defeated and captured by Deidara. And then you were killed. And I gave up, bit Chiyo-san brought you back to life."

"Oh. And when did you meet Naruto?"

"Some time last year. Between the time Deikuon was killed and before you were. Naruto was on a training trip with Jiraiya."

"Oh."

"What's the point of this?" Naruto asked.

"I know you're a Jinchuuriki," Gaara said to Naruto who froze.

"...Oh. How'd you find out?"

Gaara shrugged. "Apparently, my underlings knew and never told me until recently."

"Ah. Um, okay."

"Well," Kurogane said, staring hard at a bug. "This is rather uncomfortable." (2)

"Don't look so shocked," Gaara said. "Does it really matter whether I know or not? We're both the same, and my opinion of you hasn't changed, and I don't think it ever will. You're nothing but an 'irritating beast of burden' who won't stop pranking people and tend to think positively way too much for your own good."

Naruto stared at him.

"That's a good thing, by the way," he added.

"_Ooh_, okay."

"Just so you know, you helped me before in the exams. My first actual friend (who hasn't tried to kill me). And just so you know, I'm not going to act any differently around you just because I realize that you are more alike than you admitted to me the day you beat the hell out of me," Gaara said.

"Hehe, I _did _beat you, didn't I?" Naruto chuckled.

"I bet you can't anymore," Gaara said. "Anyway, I lack colleagues that I can trust not to stab me in the back. My mother died hating me and the rest of the village. Even my uncle Yashamaru, while my father was Kazekage, even tried to kill me when I was six. All because my father forced the demon Shukaku of Sunagakure into my body. You were the first person not to try to kill me while my back is turned for some idiotic reason, so you can trust me not to tell anyone about your demon. And I suppose it's nice that I can find something I can share with someone. Or more than one person. And backup at times like these would be appreciated..." What else was he going to say...? He should've made note cards.

"I'm done," Mr. Ollivander said, opening the doors, to find the two boys gone. He looked around and saw them across the street. "I told you two to stay!"

Gaara frowned. Screw remembering the speech. Speech was for kages with _time_ on their hands. "Alright, Kurogane, we've got to cut this short. To sum it all up, I'm interested in what you've got in mind. I support you with this small, three-man organization—"

"Aw, are you serious?" Naruto asked. "Now look, Kurogane! You're infected his mind!"

"What do you mean infected? I'm not contagious! And it's not just three—"

"—but I'm not involving myself in any war," Gaara continued forcefully. He flicked a bug off his sleeve. "All I'm doing is providing safe shelter and hideouts for Jinchuuriki. That's all. Now you go back to Hogsmeade, or I will hunt you down and murder you, thus omitting and contract and/or promises I have made."

Kurogane nodded smugly. "Got it." He disappeared in a cloud of smoke as Naruto and Gaara were ushered back into Mr. Ollivander's Wand Shop.

"Where are you sending—?" Gaara started to ask as Mr. Ollivander pushed them toward the fireplace again and tossed some Floo powder into the fire. Gaara and Naruto were handed two narrow boxes and were shoved into the fireplace and fell out in a very strange environment.

"Where the hell are we now?" Naruto asked, looking at his surroundings.

* * *

Sakura sighed in the library. Hermione was looking up more information for her SPEW project. Sakura liked studying with the girl. She was smart and caught on to things quickly. Unfortunately, she was currently somewhat obsessed with her SPEW organization. Viktor Krum was in there as well, almost as if he were looking for Gaara for guidance. Girls kept on coming in and out of the library, giggling and stalking him. Sakura sighed, getting out of her chair and walked up to him. 

"If you're always alone like that, you're easy prey for fangirls," she said to him. "Come on." She grabbed his arm and was relieved he didn't refuse to go with her.

Actually, he tried, but with her strength, she didn't notice him pulling back.

"...Anyway, you need our help too," she said, pulling him over to a table at the back of the library near Hermione's 'lair' of stacks of books.

"Vot do you mean?" he asked.

"The fan clubs," Sakura said. "They're getting out of control around here. It's like a bug. Or a virus. Or a pandemic. Either way, they're dangerous. Shino here—the guy with the shades—has a 'photography' fan club. Basically, all members included chase him around with a pictures after an unfortunate event in CoMC—Care of Magical Creatures—with Hagrid. Whoever gets a clear picture will get a fifty-five galleon prize. The price is going up as more people join and as Shino manages to avoid more and more photographers.

"Kankurou's club actually is mainly consisting of Slytherin guys. It's not as if they love him or anything, but... they're all obsessed about beating up small people. Or people who annoy them. Or anyone in general. There's also some kind of club called Kiss or something. It's weird...

"Gaara's club is full of people who are scared of him. Some really like him, some are trying to think up of ways to catch him 'off guard'," Sakura said. She laughed. "Good luck with that...It's the same thing with Sasuke's fan club. Guys hate him, girls love him. Last is Neji. It's the hair and the eyes. There's a club that's stalking him with the white eyes. One for him and Hinata. Another one for long haired guys, also including Sasuke. And then, there's the last club, including most of us, but only because we're 'geniuses'. With you and Fleur and Cedric... well, you three were the last straw, and now people are getting jumped everywhere. In short, this is all your faults."

"Oh," Viktor said, not sure what to say in response to that.

"My fan club has gotten particularly aggressive," Sasuke, who had looked like he had seen much better days, said.

"_So_," Temari said, "we are here brainstorming possible solutions."

Shikamaru held up a list.

1. Hose public fan club supporters. --Ino   
2. Blackmail. --Sasuke  
3. Beat them up in houses. Send some of our own to Hufflepuff house to wipe them out as well. --Temari  
4. Public humiliation. --Neji  
5. Fan club fee. --Kiba

"That is, um, very interesting," Viktor said. He looked around, noticing two missing faces at the table of Japanese students. The ones with the marks on their faces. "But vhere is Gaara? And that uther one, Naruto?"

"Oh, there was something about rescheduling and they're getting their wands today," Sakura said. She looked at the clock in the library. "It _is_ weird though. They've been gone for a few hours now. Does it usually take that long to just get a wand?"

"No," Viktor said. Sakura took out a long piece of parchment and took out a muggle 'pencil'.

She wrote 'Gaara' and 'Naruto' on top of the page and started writing on it.

_Flower: Hey, where are you guys? _

Sakura waited for a moment. The gray name 'Naruto' boldened first as she received a response.

_G.U.N.: Hi --Sak--—FLOWER! Sweet! These things work! Oh yeah! Question... um, Gaara and I are somewhere in a place called Africa. I think._

Sakura frowned, looking down at the note.

_Flower: WHAT?_

Viktor watched as 'Gaara' boldened as well, and she got another response under hers.

_Mr. Sandman: We're not really sure. We're supposed to be hunting some magic stuff on a reserve for a wand core. Like, a nunda or a kaimera or something. This might take a while. G.U.N. and I lost our guide in the jungle somewhere. Oh, and his name's Bill. And Bill asked for you guys to say hi to Ron earlier.  
Flower: I could look up some stuff from the library here. That's where I am right now. Are you sure you're in ' Africa'?  
Mr. Sandman: Probably. There were some dark skinned villagers holding a spear at Naruto's throat, but we took care of them fairly easily.  
Flower:_ ((pause))_ Oh. Are they dead?  
G.U.N.: We'll bring you back something good to eat, Hana-chan!  
Mr. Sandman: No we won't. Food here is nasty. There was some bat shit lying around that the locals ate.  
Flower: Hehe, okay. Well, I'll tell the others where you are.  
Mr. Sandman: One thing. Will you feed my owl for me?  
Flower: Sure.  
Mr. Sandman: Oh, and the Makoto girls usually send me daily mail. Can you do me a favor and check prices on inventory? They usually have me double check their stock and supplies. They're pathetic with numbers, and it was just my luck that it was the smart one that decided to stay Home. I'll pay you for it if you want.  
G.U.N.: Don't do it! It's a trap! He's just giving you all his wor—_

The writing stopped.

_Flower: N—GUN?  
Mr. Sandman: He's busy right now.  
Flower: Um...okay. Anyway, feed the Yaksa, check your mail...anything else?  
Mr. Sandman: Don't open anything that isn't from the Makotos. Their parcels usually say Makoto on it, but you might not be able to read it, so just look for one in tacky wrapping paper.  
Flower: What kind of paper?  
Mr. Sandman: I don't know. It's completely random. Last time it had purple Christmas trees on it with a green background. The time before that something with yellow hearts and orange four-leaf clovers. So it would've been either Valentine's or St. Patrick's Day's. I can't tell if they're color blind or stupid. Anyway, they're the only ones who send me packages so bright they blind you.  
Flower: So DON'T open anything not from Makotos. Got it. Oh. Nice 'screen name' by the way.  
Mr. Sandman: What the hell is a screename?  
Flower: The 'Mr. Sandman'.  
Mr. Sandman: It's not as if I chose that damn name!  
Flower: Well, I don't think Shikamaru would name you something like that...  
Mr. Sandman: Well he's under the influence of Temari. He might.  
Flower: Ah, that's true.  
G.U.N.: Hana-chan, Gaara tried to kill me!  
Flower: Gaara, stop trying to kill Naruto!_

"Gun and Sandman are Naruto and Gaara?" Viktor asked.

"Eh..." Sakura frowned. "Don't tell anyone," she warned him. "Um... Gaara doesn't want people to call him Mr. Sandman, you know?

_Mr. Sandman: As you say, Hana-hime!  
Flower: ..._Gaara?  
_G.U.N.: No! I'm Gaara! Naruto took my parchment! Make him give it back, dammit, before I kill him!  
Flower: Naruto, give Gaara back his parchment!  
Mr. Sandman: But I'M Mr. Sandman! Haha!  
G.U.N.: You dead!  
Flower: Wait, before you guys go, what are you hunting?  
G.U.N.: Hn, some goat-lion dragon thing and a really big leopard.  
Flower: Ah, happy hunting.  
G.U.N.: Happy... _(there was a long pause) _Saturday? _

Sakura had to laugh at that confused response. Viktor looked slightly confused.

"I only noticed it recently, but it's kinda cute when Gaara's not sure what to say," she said with a grin. "He's like a little kid."

Viktor, or anyone else for that matter, did not know what was so funny about it. Whenever Gaara was struggling for words, he had the strangest look in the eye that said he was going to kill everyone in the room who saw him in a weak position. Of course, maybe he just looked at Sakura in a different, not so menacing way. It must be that. Because by now, even after only a few short moments of actually speaking to the red-haired boy, Viktor was sure that Gaara was one of the most fear-inspiring figures he had ever met in his life. Maybe it was the pale eyes that seemed to become completely clear like the Hyuugas' when he was angry. Maybe it was the dark, menacing circles around it, since they made him look like a menacing 'punk'. Or maybe it was the fact that his gourd, as his siblings had mentioned several times, could kill people, and he had witnessed it _move_ in peculiar, not normal ways.

"So...Gaara is in Africa," Viktor said.

"Yes. Probably," Sakura said, taking out another book from a nearby shelf. She opened it to the atlas in front. "This is the world map...?" he could hear her wonder in a soft voice to herself, perhaps unaware that Viktor was listening to her muttering. "Okay. So Africa is a really big place," she said in a louder voice, one that was probably meant to be actually be heard. "I just don't know where they are in there."

"And... he said that they are hunting... a nundu and a chimera?"

"Chimera? Hm, they probably spelled it wrong," Sakura said. "But yeah, it looks like it. What's a nundu and chimera?"

Viktor frowned, only remembering something about a dangerous rating of XXXXX. "It may be...in the book that He-Herm...oh...ai...nine...ee has," he said uncertainly.

"Hermione? How would you know what book she has?" she asked, taking out her list of school books. "Hm... I don't have anything about here on those things, but thanks," Sakura said. "We'll look it up later."

"Ah, okay," Viktor said. As soon as Sakura started looking through her books, he left the library to find Fleur and Cedric, to tell them about what he found out. (3)

* * *

Personally, I don't mind the threats. It's fun to read, even though somewhat intimidating. 

(1) When kids measure each other and compare heights, they're hand usually drifts up or down, whether they want it or not. I don't know how to explain it but... yeah.   
(2) I'm not really sure how Naruto should react to that... I mean, ordinarily, I suppose he would probably freak out... but Gaara is Jinchuuriki too. So it's not as big of a deal.  
(3) Anyway, no, Viktor's not a bad guy. None of the champions really are. They're just curious. I mean, who wouldn't be? They want to know if they were the ones who 'helped' Harry enter the tournament thing. Viktor don't really think he entered himself, Cedric's confused, and Fleur is positive that he did it. So, since they all want to find out, they're working together like a team! Yaaaay! Teamwork! But only for things like this. And finding out more about these Japanese people, since they're all, um... a bit strange. You know, the way they fight, no wands, bringing weapons to school, and occasionally looking like they're flying when they run through the hallways. Some might think they're strange. The champions do too.

* * *

**My Thinking Corner**

Wow, my fic is sooo great, that _everybody's_ copying it! Ooooooh. Yeah. -.- Someone had copied the first 2 chapters of his fic and was probably planning on copying more. Okay, so it's not really exact anymore, but only because I had gone back and fixed all/most of the spelling mistakes. The spelling mistakes that the person who copied had failed to correct. So I spent the day writing a personal flame for them. I didn't send it or submit it or anything. Why? If fictionpress didn't get rid of the author, then I'd flame their damn ass off. I got almost four pages of flame, just on their profile. Oh, and oddly enough, this person had ALSO stolen my profile. Every single one of my favorite quotes, same order, same everything. It's too bad that they deleted that person, because if they didn't, I would've sent it.  
On the other hand, I now have a wonderful idea! A flame forum! Or an anti-flame forum. Basically, writers go there to let out their steam with retarded reviews, plagiarism, n00bs, Mary Sues, etc! I hadn't made it yet, but I think it'll be fun. Then again, maybe it's also somewhat offending... whatever. Don't really care. But do you think a(n) (anti-)flame forum is a good idea or no?

The parchment they have is like a 'write it yourself chatroom'! Like, on AIM. I was just inspired by reading something about a thing that JK Rowling was planning. I have no idea what she's really thinking, but I do know that she has some sort of wizard version of the internet in mind. So I was thinking... "I have no idea how to make an internet thing...but I _do_ know how to get them to communicate on paper altogether from completely different places!"

And no bashing in this fic. I received two kill (insert name here) reviews. I don't kill off characters without a good reason, whether it is to advance the plot or because I have no idea what to do with them (sweatdrop). Hermione isn't completely unimportant and she's not too bad in my opinion. I mean, the worst she's done is nearly kill Harry's firebolt in the 3rd book, and nothing bad happened then either, you know? As for Rita Skeeter... mehehehe...I'm sorry, people, she's not going to die... but there is going to be a bit of a series of war in Hogwarts, a verbal war and a sneaky ninja war. Okay, okay, I suppose all of you are going to be annoyed that I'm not Offing her, but... I need to keep her, so that another person on the shinobi's side could do something too. (nooo, I'm not being vague on purpose! Of COURSE not...(shifty eyes)) Anyway, her role is to help another person's role, for comedy's sake. If you think about it really really really really hard, you might figure out what I'm doing and who I am doing it with. Or, you can just IM me and catch me offguard, which you WON'T be doing! After I accidentally leaked out a bit of information (okay, not an accident, but I shouldn't have done it anyway), I'm being more careful not to do that anymore...  
Oh, and there will be no duel club in this fic. I'll have to leave something left for the next rest. But I did have a weird dream involving a pillow fight recently. but instead of pillows, we were throwing giant marshmallows at each other (marshmallows, mm...). And then they somehow turned into bags of sand. Too bad Gaara wasn't there. I totally wish I could choose what I dream up. But a pillow fight: ninja style!

I hope the Halloween prank satisfies your needs. It did mine. Oh, and Dragon Man 180 helped inspire me!

Oh, and to the Violent Tomboy...your guess was completely off. Crab? Lobster? Bat? I never mentioned any of those as a puppet... Yet somehow, you actually almost got two of his three newer puppets. The fourth one he had gotten that Sasori didn't break, before the Makoto's gave him the other two.

Thank you, darkflame, for the advice about my updating schedule.

A "Just so you know" list:  
-The shinobi aren't supposed to use their jutsus in the tournament. They said they won't because they shouldn't and they just want to avoid bringing attention to themselves. So, they sorta 'swore'/promised not to do anything big like that, but if you hadn't noticed, like me, they tend to break their own rules.  
-Harry already has his magic back, as you can tell from that spell he shot at Malfoy, but he can't really manage it up with his lack of control over his magic.  
-As for the puppet, it's not hitokugutsu. Remember that Chiyo and Sasori were the only ones (or something) who were able to pull it off, or else EVERYONE will be digging up graves to get bodies. The puppet's blond, and so are the older Makotos, buuuut, no. It's not modeled to look after them.  
-Oh, and to those who asked, I have a lvl 32 and a lvl 33 cleric on Scania. And I know what you mean. I work so hard, but everyone's, like, in level 2564758052s. Oh, and to those who would actually try to play MS just to find out whether I'm a girl or a guy... too bad, because I have one account that's one sex, and another that's the opposite sex (courtesy of a friend who no longer plays), so HAH! To those who don't know what the heck I am talking about... yeah.  
-Most people guessed that I was a guy... Everyone thinks I'm a guy, but AM I? Hm... Yeah, anyway, I'm not telling anyone. I mean, I accidentally told one person. He IMed me, and then we talk and then I'm extra careful using 'he/she' and all sorts of things, but then I made ONE TINY MISTAKE of accidentally forgetting to change the he or the she to the he/she and now one person is absolutely sure of what gender I am... Now I just gotta keep other people who talk to me from knowing. (twitches, paranoid-ly). I feel bad though, because I ruined the big surprise for the end of this fic... I mean, the person really doesn't mind but... (sighs), you know...

* * *

And, as you know, threats to update have become shockingling frightening (news anchorman/anchorwoman mode, complete with a microphone). A reader is currently holding me hostage. It seems I'm wanted for slow updates, so I am currently stuck in Haku's mirror trap technique (hey, that sounds kinda cool...). How much my ransom will be? It will most probably be paid off in chapters. Once I'm at chapter 25, I'll be free! In the meantime, while he's reading the next few chapters, I'll be trying to sneak away. (shifty eyes) 

Anyway, I'm not sure whether two story critics of mine are still with me...I haven't heard from them since Chapter 19. You guys still alive? Then again, I haven't really been giving them too much time to edit. I guess it's too fast, usually posting my chapters 2 days after I send the rough drafts or 2 days after I get my first response back... I'm just impatient I guess. And lacking a life. I also told myself to give myself at least a week to type the chapters and a week for the others to edit, but I keep on breaking my own self-promise stuff... That's just pathetic... (no willpower...) T-T


	22. Chapter 22

The power of the Big Stick...vested in me by the Great Psycho Dragon Lover...shall protect me from all the angry reviewers!  
A much needed protection. Anyway, I'm sorry about the slow updating. I was taking a small break to read a few books that I've heard about...A Child Called It (it was so sad!), Shadow Puppets (which I've gotten to the fifteenth page until I stopped because I got confused with the big words...), Lord of the Rings (in which I just plain stopped after the fifty bajillionth ballad... what's with Tolkein and huge long songs going one for ten pages? yeah, yeah, the sun is setting, orcs are cooking your hobbit friends, and dwarf women have beards. Great. We get it so please stop singing), and the fifth Harry Potter book. I'm reading the fifth again because I heard a rumor that there's a horcrux in every book. I think I've found the one in the fifth. I've read a few editorials, and now I am scouring the pages for clues as to what's to come. Like, what's with the map on Dumbledore's knee? He has some sort of weird birthmark on his knee, a map of Gringott's... I think?  
Okay, now for my pathetic excuses...: I read "Child-It", started LOTR...gave up, started Shadow Puppets...stopped to start to try to read the three books BEFORE it to try and understand what the heck was going on. Since I had to wait to get the books, since I'm borrowing them from friends and junk, I start this chapter. I get to, like, the top of the second page when I get tired and stop. Kinda low on motivation. And so I save it on the Document Manager thing online like I always do... my only copy is online... a bad choice... because then my INTERNET SCREWS UP! So, after a week sitting in the corner, completely white looking dazed with drool coming out of my mouth (anime-style, like Keitaro from Love Hina trying to study for exams), I get up and just decide to start the chapter over. The thing is that I seem to be constantly going off on tangents. Because in my daze, I started reading the Order of the Phoenix... Yeah. And then I started taking notes. And making more notes. So now, I have notes from this chapter to about chapter 25 ready... (just notes, not actual substance, sorry). And I also have the first chapter or two of the _next fiction_. Greeeaaat, so now there's a huuuuge gap between my plans... Not that I really mind. It doesn't really matter to me. So anyway, the date I actually started writing the chapter was about a whole week after the previous, 21. So now, I start it, on April 8, 2006! What sucks was that right after I got my internet back, I got really sick. And then I had a whole bunch of projects that I've neglected. Due in two days...  
ANYWAY, sorry about the reeeaaally long wait, people! I really am! (prepares the Big Stick and cowers in the corner looking paranoid with strands of hair sticking out everywhere). Ah... yeah. So whatever you through at my in your reviews... well, I'm not really ready for it, but I'll deal with it! Excuses, excuses, on with the show!

Chapter 22: It's _Not_ Edible  
(_Or not _supposed_ to be, anyway..._)

_------------ _  


_Gaara and Naruto stepped through the fireplace. They were confused as to what was going on in that demented wand maker's head, but... even they could hardly believe that he would purposely force them into a world with dark skinned natives with spears pointed at their necks. _

_"..." Gaara sweatdropped, with a particularly pointy stick jabbing at his throat. Vaguely annoyed, he pushed it away from his face/ _

_"That's _rude_," he said irritably. People shouted and the stick was shoved right back beneath his nose. Naruto edged away, seeing the vein mark in the side of Gaara's temple. Gaara grabbed the spear with both hands and a large sandy fist reached from over his shoulder and bopped the victim right in the nose. _

_Well, that was much less destructive than Naruto had been expecting. But Gaara's unexpected assault caused a bit of an uproar. Just seconds later, all offenders were buried up to their neck in sand with a Kage bunshin each standing above them, ready to kick the shit out of them._

_"Now, I hardly think there was any need for that," a friendly voice said. A man with long red hair, numerous amounts of body piercing, and what looked like Muggle clothing approached them, his hands up to show that he was unarmed. _

_Naruto rubbed his eyes, looking at one redhead, and then the other, a bit confused. "Gaara! I never knew you had an older brother!"_

_"...He's not my brother, but I do have one."_

_"What?"_

_"...Oh yeah!" Naruto laughed, scratching the back of his head. "Uh...hehe, oops. Forgot."_

_"I almost understand, since it's just you, but how on earth could you forget the sight of Kankurou's face? Honestly, you always manage to do the impossible."_

_"Heh."_

_"You must be Naruto and Gaara," the man said amiably. "I'm Bill, and welcome to Madagascar!" _

_"Eh?"_

_"Oh yeah, I guess you never watched the movie... my father's a big fan of muggle movies and there's one that's called Madagascar. About this place."_

_"...What's Madagascar?"_

_"You know...huge island. Off the coast of Africa...?"_

_"...What's Africa?"_

_"...Uh, never mind," Bill said. "Anyway, you guys surprised us, coming dressed as muggles."_

_"And you aren't?" Naruto asked. "That looks like concert stuff clothes!"_

_"Well, they aren't," Bill said. "Anyway, why didn't you two show proof that you're a wizard. I mean, you've got the wand parts."_

_"I couldn't understand what they said," Naruto said. _

_"I could."_

_"Really?" Naruto asked him._

_"With the translation spells, we can understand any language spoken, but the spell has to be renewed about every month. You always wait until the last minute at the end of each month to renew yours, so as the spell gets older, it takes longer to switch from English to whatever next language you're hearing. If you renew it every other week like the _rest of us_, then you'll be able to understand other language almost instantly. _

_"So, in other words," Bill said, "you understood everything that they were saying?"_

_"Yes."_

_"Well why didn't you just save yourself the trouble and explain to them what you were doing here?"_

_"It wasn't any trouble," Gaara said, almost as if he had only been granting them a favor. _

_"...Oh. So _why_ did you bury them again?" Bill asked. _

_"It was amusing," he said bluntly. _

_"Oh... wait, you were the one who made the sand move at the Quidditch pitch!"_

_"Yes...hn, you're a _Weasley

_"Oh, no, you're one of those pureblood fanatics aren't you?"_

_"No."_

_"Oh, okay. I just couldn't tell what that sound of disgust in your voice was for._

_"It's from your brother being a prat," Gaara said. _

_"You're a Slytherin."_

_"Yes."_

_"I expected that..."_

_"Well _I'm_ not a Slytherin, and I _still_ think he's a prat!" Naruto said cheerfully. _

_"Really? Why?"_

_"He's being an ass."_

_Gaara was getting impatient with the idle chattering. Just standing there talking wasn't too interesting to him. Better get this finished with soon so he could leave sooner. _

_"Okay, what the hell are we doing here anyway?" he asked Bill suddenly, cutting their conversation about Bill's brother short. _

_"Huh? Oh, yeah, we've got to get your wand cores. Thing is, that the two animals needed are the nundu and the chimaera, which can all be found here at the reserve. Unfortunately, they've both gone lose somewhere here. What we are going to do is travel in groups of three, so we can find them. You see one, run like hell. We aren't going to take them down alone. We'll need a lot more of us to take down a nundu," Bill said. He took out a small travel pack like Naruto's kunai and shuriken pouch. "If we find a nundu, crack the green one. If we're in trouble, crack the red. And if you're lost, the blue. But as long as you stick with me, nothing's going to go wrong."_

* * *

**One hour later...**

_Naruto and Gaara were running through some part of the forest on the other side of the island, and Naruto was seriously freaking out. _

_"Crap!" he cried in frustration. "We lost our map _and_ our travel packs!"_

_"And Bill, too," Gaara reminded him. (Meanwhile, the more hotheaded villagers were still stuck up to their heads in sand.)_

* * *

"Hi, Sakura!" Anko greeted quietly, opening the door to the dungeon. She glanced nervously to the back room. "Thank god you're here, I need help with Sevvie's paperwork. I lost it you see?" 

"Yeah," Sakura said. "Does he really not mind you calling him 'Sevvie'?"

"Oh, he minds alright, but it's not as if he can kill me or something. I mean, it's not as if you can make much of an annoying nickname with Ank..." she paused and gave a little shudder. "Nevermind... Anyway, I need help looking for some stuff."

"You told me it was just paperwork that you needed help with," Sakura said.

"Well...yeah. I do need help with it.I lost them."

"I don't know why he even puts up with you," she said to Anko, shaking her head. "I mean, you should just be glad he doesn't try switching you to Binns or something."

"Oh, Sevvie _loves _me," she laughed.

"Despises you, more like," Sakura said, after shuddering briefly. Snape and Anko? Now _that_ was a frightening thought. "Anyway, thanks for letting me work down here. Those Beauxbatons guys are too 'you 'ave such preety peenk 'air!' and all that, it's just maddening. And Neji, Tenten, and I are allowed to sit with the Slytherins but we aren't supposed to be 'interacting'. Like, we act all tense near each other, Shikamaru said." Sakura looked down at the entire stack of parcels she had brought down from the Great Hall. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do with them. Gaara had only told her to work on the ones the Makotos sent. So what was she going to do with the others?

Anko whistled. "That sure is a lot of mail," she said. "Hm...Gaara's got a giiiirlfriend," she said.

"I don't think so," Sakura muttered, her throat tightening. She threw the bag on the table.

"...At times like this, I really wish you never worked with Tsunade," Anko said, inspecting a large crack on the table. "You really are scary when you're jealous."

"_Jealous_?" she said suddenly. "Of who?"

"Gaara, of course."

"...Why would I be jealous of him?" she asked suspiciously.

"He's rich!" Anko said. "He's super strong! I mean, you're strong too, but he's getting all this mail from people he probably doesn't even know! He's really important and famous and he's a totally awesome killer...!" She continued to rattle on, listing reasons for Sakura to be jealous of Gaara. The medic-nin sighed in relief. Thank god Anko was dim outside of battle.

Sakura sorted through the parcels until she found the blaring Makoto package. It wasn't hard to do so, with its bright yellow turkeys decorating the envelope.

_Merlin..._ Sakura thought, watching the turkeys walk across the envelope covering. _These girls are completely obsessed with these spelled wrapping papers..._

She glanced at the papers and realized that the task Gaara gave her was much easier than she had thought.

_Good lord..._ she thought, glancing down a long list of inventory she had been sent that was categorized by 'Sold', 'Available', and 'Pre-Ordered'. The Makotos may have a few dozen loose screws in their head, but they were, it seemed, extremely efficient with their work, having produced a number of original inventions like Galleon-keys and an assortment of 'Idiot-proof self-defense devices'.

"...So anyway," Anko said, rummaging through the classroom as quietly as she could manage it, searching for whatever papers she had misplaced. "I've been looking for a few days now. Good thing he hasn't noticed it's gone yet. If I can't find it... well, I found this really nifty spell that could change my handwriting. All I hafta do as a last resort is remember all of the potions he has in there."

"Wait... all the potions he has in _what_?" Sakura asked suspiciously.

"I don't know," Anko said vaguely. "Some Potion diary."

"...Wait a minute, you mean it was his _Potions Log_ that you lost...?-!" she asked, wide-eyed. Anko grinned sheepishly.

"Hehe, uh... it was an accident," she said.

"Oh my god, he's going to murder you!"

"Only if you keep on shouting it out loud while he's in the next room," Anko said warily, looking at the door.

"I'll ask Hinata to look for it later," Sakura said, but after that, she stopped everything. There was a _pink_ envelope now. Was this another Makoto package? No, this wasn't a blaring pink. It was a light color that looked as if it had been made carefully, with an intricate pale purple ribbon tying it closed. It... it smelled like someone had sprayed it with some sort of perfume.

She froze, remembering the rumors of a quickly growing 'Gaara fanclub'. A _love _letter?-! '_Dear Gaara, Blah blah blah blah blah **I LOVE YOU **blah blah blah blah blah..._' She shuddered at the thought. Well then... it was her duty as Gaara's temporary secretary to get rid of all spam... Sakura gingerly picked up the perfume-coated envelope to throw it out when it began to grow warm in her hands.

She was about to drop the envelope when it suddenly lit up the room.

* * *

"What the hell is a nunda anyway?" Naruto wondered out loud. 

"I don't know, Naruto," Gaara said impatiently. At times like these, he wished he was a Hyuuga. Not only would he have these cool white eyes, but it'd be easier to navigate through new places like these. "Stop for a minute," he ordered. He made the Bird sign with his hand (I think it's the bird), and said, "_Daisan no Me... (1)" _

"...Okay. We are on the wrong side of the island," Gaara said, struggling to not destroy anything within his reach.

"You're kidding me!" Naruto cried.

"Do I kid?"

"Well, you did, like, three times..."

"Shut up, Naruto."

"But you _asked_ me..." the blond said, knowing full well how his bickering and whining annoyed Gaara. "But how the hell did the village get from this side to the other?"

"I don't know, I guess it jumped up over the mountain and landed over on the opposite side," the kazekage said sarcastically. He took a deep breath. He shouldn't be angry at Naruto anyway. It was his own fault.

There had been a large monstrous cat attacking him, Naruto, and Bill who had told them to run and get as far away as possible. Once they had ran and gained some distance between themselves and the cat monster, Bill told Gaara to grab his arm and get Naruto too. So, he did what he was told and grabbed Naruto by the back of his shirt and Bill by his arm when there was a strange sensation in his stomach and the colors of the jungle around him began to swirl. Alarmed, he released Bill's arm, which seemed to be the cause of all this. The world became distorted and twisted around them for a moment. When Gaara regained his orientation, he looked around. They seemed to be in a different part of the forest, and Bill was gone. They were alone at the base of a mountain at the edge of the forest. Of course, Naruto wasn't aware of Gaara's mistake of letting go of Bill's arm. All the kazekage would have to do now is kill the Weasley and no one would ever know.

Then again, they may have been lost, but Naruto as having the time of his life.

"This is so cool!" he said eagerly. "Like a camping trip! Only here, the wildlife can eat us and the mosquitoes are three feet long and carry some killer disease, but who cares? Likes go hunt for food or something! I've always dreamed of eating a five-legged snake... roasted over the fire... on a platter next to my ramen..."

"..." Gaara chose wisely not to comment on anything Naruto said.

Naruto paused, not sure whether Gaara was being quiet because he was annoyed or because he wasn't sure how to respond to that. One of the disadvantages to being friends with the antisocial.

"Hey, how come you can't use the eye thing while we're walking around? I mean, just tell us to go right or left at the same time. It's like looking and walking at the same time, right? Like, easy?"

"Okay, Naruto," Gaara said, almost cheerfully. Uh oh... Naruto braced himself for a bite of sarcasm. "_You_ try walking around, looking in two directions at once."

"...People can _do_ that?"

Gaara frowned. "Cross-eyed. Walk cross-eyed. Watch the finger." As he walked, he moved his finger closer and closer to Naruto's face until it was almost touching his nose. "Now keep your eyes like that for a while."

Naruto stumbled almost immediately. Gaara stopped to wait for him. Naruto looked up at him to meet with a pair of disdainful, yet somewhat amused, eyes. He grinned. "Hey, you waited for me!" he said cheerfully.

"I'm not the type of evil person who will leave another behind," Gaara said with a shrug. "I'm the type of evil person to try to strangle you in your sleep."

"Remind me not to sleep anywhere near you. Ever."

"Now that I think about it now, it probably wouldn't be too hard to do it while you're awake, so long as you have your back turned." He turned around and started walking again.

Naruto twitched and got back to his feet, running towards his friend. "Gaara, that was a joke, right? Right...? I mean, you're not really going to try and do me in..." Naruto frowned. "Gaara! _Gaara_! MR. SANDMAN!"

"_What_?" Gaara said impatiently, turning around. "And don't call me—" He found himself standing face-to-face with a large lion. He froze. That thing stank... It smelled like goat shit. Which was weird. Rotten meat, maybe. A stinking breath, probably. But not poo— Gaara looked at the entire creature and found that it wasn't just any lion. It had a lion's head, of course, but it also had the body of a goat and a dragon tail.

Naruto sighed. "Great," he said. "We're surrounded by a pack of ugly goats. Brilliant."

Gaara leaned back slightly, giving himself a little space from the lion-dragon creature. He moved back. It moved forward. Annoyed by this animal, he put his hands together when he heard—

"_Kage bunshin no jutsu_!" There was a series of 'poofs' as the creatures that surrounded them where soon surrounded themselves. Naruto, somewhere there amongst himself, was just having fun when...the creatures were gone.

"Gaara!" he whined. "What'd you do...?"

There was a muffled shriek of a frenzied animal. Naruto's shadow copies disappeared, rather disappointed at the lack of any danger. He looked down at his feet and found a strange lion-goat-dragon at his feet. He was surrounded by lion heads.

"I suppose you thought it was funny, letting me get all kage bunshin-ed up for nothing, didn't you?" Naruto asked wryly, feeling a bit annoyed.

"We don't have any time to waste, and I want to get back to...that place," Gaara said. "The village, I mean. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get back to Hogwarts."

"Gee, you're such a fun guy..." Naruto muttered. "So...what do we do with these things?" He nudged the snarling fanged creature with his foot and nearly got a toe bitten off.

Gaara shrugged. "I don't really care. I was just planning on leaving them a few hundred feet underground. You?"

"That's really cruel," Naruto said. "But... I have a better idea." Out of his kunai pouch, he pulled out a long rope. He continued pulling it out for a while. "Lift these things in the air, will ya?" he asked Gaara, who did so. "Thanks." He tied their legs together, creating a long line of mutated lion-dragon-goat creatures. "There, now they can't get away!" he said cheerfully. "Right legs on one side, left legs on the other, and forward, MARCH!" he laughed at his own corny joke.

"Like in prison..."

"_Exactly_," Naruto grinned at Gaara. It wasn't really funny... but the fact that this was Naruto still made him put a hand to his face, as if he had a headache, to cover a smile.

"You are demented," he said, wondering why Naruto had yards and yards of strong, almost steel-like rope, but no significant amount of food, shuriken, or kunai.

"Says the psychotic killer to the surprisingly cute blond guy," Naruto said.

"You're not cute..."

"Well the girls at Hogwarts certainly think otherwise. I'm getting a fanclub! What can you say about that?"

"I say that these girls are lacking in taste," Gaara said. "If you haven't heard, even _I_ have a club."

"Oh come on," Naruto said blithely. "It doesn't mean their taste is that bad. It just as if they haven't seen a Japanese person with naturally red or blond or pink hair. Maybe a lighter brown, maybe a black, but not those colors We're like exotic animals there! Animals that look even better standing next to the local livestock."

Gaara tried to hide a laugh, and succeeded in appearing as if he were choking on air. "That's true," he said, with a thoughtful look on his face. "I bet if he stayed long enough, even Lee would have gotten one..."

"Actually, I heard that there was a 'Sunshine Club' dedicated to him in Konoha."

"You're kidding me."

"Nope. For once, I am not," Naruto said, all too serious, as they headed up. They paused, nearing the highest point on the mountain pass. "Whoo, boy, that looks like a long run down," Naruto said, looking at the dot at the base of the mountain. "Wanna race?"

"I'd rather not," Gaara said wryly. "I hate running." He shuddered, with a mental image of himself running down the slopes out of control because he was going too fast and had the huge sand gourd weighing down on his back and throwing him off balance. No thank you, he'd rather avoid losing control of his legs. (2)

Naruto paused with an almost thoughtful look on his face as they started heading down the mountain. "You also hate emos, marron glaces, yokan, wizards, fan clubs, house elves, toads, flowers, paperwork, orange, your dad, homework, Divination, Arithmancy, Harry Potter, sweets, ramen, people who say katanas and junk are cool just because others think so too, obsessed freaks, losers who watch other people in relationships and go around pretending they don't want to be in one, people who copy and act like you, people who spell your name wrong, reporters, bugs, procrastinators, wannabes, Lee, Gai, girls—"

"I don't hate girls," Gaara said firmly.

"Ah, you're sure about that, aren't you?" Naruto said with a grin. Hah! One item off the Hates List, one thousand four hundred and seventy-two more to go. This was progress. Last week, it was one thousand four hundred and seventy-_four_.

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded.

"Nothing," Naruto said, grinning stupidly. His stomach grumbled. "Say..." he said, looking back at the creatures.

"What?"

"You think these things are edible?"

* * *

Meanwhile, at Hogwarts, Neji and Sasuke were trying to figure out what Harry's summon was. 

"You really suck at this," Neji commented.

"Oh, shut up..."

"It's not working!" Sasuke complained for the umpteenth time.

"Maybe you're not bleeding enough," the Hyuga prodigy said thoughtfully. "Only one more cut. We promise this time."

"You said the exact same thing eight times already! Stop cutting me! Stop it, no more cuttin—OOOW! I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding a _lot_!"

"Oh, well maybe if you had bitten your thumb properly in the first place we wouldn't be stabbing your hand," Neji retorted.

"Well it's not my fault I'm not some masochist and didn't practice biting myself in my childhoo—holy fucking shit! Stop that! I'm already bleeding!"

"I didn't do that to help you with your summon this time," Sasuke muttered. "I did it to make you shut up."

"You asshole!"

"Oh yeah, well I'm an ASSHOLE who can actually BITE MY THUMB RIGHT!"

"I'm bleeding too much! I need to go to the infirmary!" Harry shouted, attempting to run out of the Forbidden Forest, hoping the blood leaking profusely from the many stab wounds on his hand wouldn't attract any unwanted dangerous creatures.

"Nonsense," Neji said, grabbing him by the back of the robes. "You're fine."

Ten minutes later, Neji and Sasuke were in the hallways dragging Harry to the infirmary, unconscious from blood loss.

* * *

_"..." Neji and Sasuke frowned and traded glances. _

_"Yeah, I think that's enough for now," Neji said. _

_"He should've gone to the infirmary, the idiot," Sasuke commented, nudging the body with his foot._

* * *

So they took Harry's blood drained body to the infirmary for yet another round of blood replenishing potions that Hinata always managed to sneak out of the potions cabinet whenever Snape wasn't looking. 

"Blood pot," Neji said simply, dragging Harry into the room.

"Neji, you shouldn't use up so much," Hinata said to him. "This is the last for today. Professor Snape is starting to notice missing blood-replenishing potions, and we don't want him suspecting too much.

"Alright, alright," Neji said. "I think Harry was ready to go all mutinous on us anyway. I don't think he liked us cutting his hand up."

Hinata raised a green glowing hand to Harry's and healed his bloody palm.

"Why don't you just get Sakura to do that?" Sasuke asked her. "She's the faster healer, right?"

"Sakura's busy," Hinata said.

"Yeah, what's she doing?" Neji asked, standing up and heading for some closed curtains.

"What do you mean?" Sasuke asked him. Neji opened the curtains, showing Sakura reading a book quietly behind the drapes. "Oh."

"Um, hi," Sakura said nervously to them. "Uh, heh, I didn't hear you guys."

"Yes you did," Neji said.

"Fine, I did," she said hastily, rubbing her bandaged hands together.

"What happened?" Sasuke asked.

"Um...it's a touchy issue really..." she said, not looking at them. Sasuke and Neji stared at her, doujutsus activated, until she caved in. "Alright, alright, quit making faces at me with your eyes... I was, um, doing Gaara's mail..."

"Yeah, he asked you to count up the things from the Makoto's shop, right?" Sasuke asked after deactivating his sharingan. "What's so dangerous about that?"

"Mm...yeah, it's kinda embarrassing that I got hit by a _wizard spell_, of all things, but, um...I saw an envelope... one that caught my attention... and I was going to throw it away..."

"So you throw away spam," Neji said, noticing her strange hesitance to tell them. "What's wrong about that?"

"Well, it might not have been junk mail... it looked like a letter. Like, the type the civilian girls give to guys they like..."

"..." Sasuke and Neji (and Hinata too) stared at Sakura.

"You," Sasuke said, a grin growing on his face. "You, of all people, were going to get rid of evidence... Mail from a _girl_. Destroying your competition...That's downright _Slytherin_ of you... What a bad Ravenclaw you are..."

"Shut up, Sasuke," Sakura said, tossing a pillow in his face and knocking him down into the ground.

"That is rather rude," Neji said. "I would have expected you to go for Naruto. Everyone knows that the blond gets the most girls, but for the most part, everything's been pretty even."

"Well I wouldn't go after Naruto. Everyone knows that Hinata liked him firs—" she stopped in mid-sentence, seeing the shocked look on Neji's face. Sakura was stunned, too shocked for words. Neji, the genius who sees and understands everything and anything, _didn't _know about Hinata's infatuation with the blond prankster of Konoha?-!

"Eep!" Hinata, started backing for the door. Neji turned around to face her (which was making quite a point, as Hyugas hardly needed eye contact.

"_You _like _him_?" he asked her incredulously.

"H-h-h-he's a-a v-v-v-ve-ve-ver-very n-ni-nice pe-pe-per-person..." she stuttered, worse than ever.

"Naruto? _Uzumaki Naruto_? The guy who painted all of Konoha? The ninja who _farted_ in_ Kiba's face_ during the _Chunin tests_?"

(insert incoherent super-stuttering here)

"Uzumaki Naruto..." Neji said, his bangs shadowing his eyes. "...must die..."

"N-no! N-Ne-Neji, i-i-if y-you d-d-do a-an-an-any...thing t-to N-Na-Nar-Naruto, I...I'll..."

"You'll what?" Neji said cockily, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I have nothing to hide. My record—aside from the fact that I tried to kill you forty-seven times in our childhood (which is now public knowledge)—is completely clean."

"I'll... I'LL TELL TENTEN YOU WERE LOOKING AT HER NAKED WITH YOUR BYAKUGAN!" Hinata shrieked, turning beet red. She wasn't the only one.

Neji developed a deep shade of red and a twitchy eye. "I have done no such thing!" he shouted. "The Byakugan is not to be used for such unworthy actions!"

"Sh-she d-d-doesn't kn-know th-th-th-that!" she cried, running as Neji chased after her. They ran out of the room. Sasuke and Sakura were just laughing silently, clutching their sides with tears pooling up in their eyes.

"So sneaky...'specially for Hinata... Haha, what's with everyone becoming a Slytherin?" Sasuke wondered, wiping a tear from his eye. "I knew it: we Slytherins are just so handsome and slick that all of the other houses wish to become us..."

"You wish," Sakura said to him with a grin on her face.

Sasuke took a deep breath. "So what's the story?"

"Huh?"

"You know... Gaara's mail ambushing you?"

"Oh, that... I don't really know who did it," Sakura said.

"Ah, well I do," Sasuke said to himself. He got up and left. "By the way..."

"Yeah, Sasuke?"

"We're still friends, right, Sakura?"

"Um... right. Why?"

"Nothing. I just like you a lot more now. You just gave me the perfect excuse to do something that I have been waiting to do all year long..."

* * *

"This..." Naruto gasped, looking at a smoked object on a stick. "This...does _not_ taste like chicken!" 

"I say it's more like goat," Gaara said.

"You ate a goat before?"

"No, but it looks like one, so I am assuming that this thing is like a goat. Or a lion. Or a dragon. Either way, you're right. It doesn't taste like chicken."

"I know I'm right! But why doesn't it taste like chicken?"

"That's probably because it isn't, Naruto," Gaara said, taking another bite into the smoking piece of meat.

"You actually _like_ it?"

"It's... _interesting_," Gaara said truthfully. "It could use some salt though."

"You just like the salt," Naruto said accusingly.

"Yes. I do."

"That's unhealthy. Old men like salt. They eat _it _with _everything_. You're an old man, Gaara."

"I'm the youngest old man I've ever seen in the mirror."

"Well there's Jiraiya. And, well I guess you've never really seen Orochimaru before... But Tsunade... she's _ancient_."

"But she's not a man," Gaara said.

"_Definitely _not a man," Naruto agreed.

Naruto was currently enjoying himself, sitting on a cloud of flying sand with the wind in his hair and the panicked screams of creatures trapped in sand beneath him. Well... that part wasn't particularly enjoyable, but it didn't do anything to dampen his spirits. The village... they were so... clos—

"Merlin's beard!" someone cried out.

Gaara and Naruto stopped on their cloud of sand. They looked back at the small avalanche of sand and strange creatures behind him. The sand backed up a bit, revealing Bill, who was looking rather dazed. He started shaking the sand out of his dragon-hide boots. He looked up at Gaara and Naruto, with a strange look on his face.

"Who did this?" he asked. Naruto pointed at Gaara immediately.

("Traitor," Gaara muttered under his breath.)

"...You did this at the quidditch cup!" Bill said. "You said you didn't!"

"Correction: Kakashi said that we didn't have wands, and then answered your question with a question of his own: 'How could we do magic without wands?'"

Bill paused. "Oh yeah, Japanese magic. I suppose you have, like, ink and parchment or something like that..."

"Huh?" Naruto was confused.

"_Like how mikos and priests perform exorcisms_," Gaara said under his breath in Japanese. "_Just play along with it..._ Yeah, that's why I have the... paper magic on my gourd. The marks make me able to control it."

"Perhaps I should study it," Bill said thoughtfully. "And then I'd be able to do magic like yours."

"You won't and you can't."

"Ah, what a way to destroy my self-confidence," Bill said, not at all offended by Gaara's bluntness. He frowned, looking at something move underneath the sand. "Um...your sand is alive... Is that your magic?"

"No." The sand parted slightly, creating bars on what looked like a hollow prison for Naruto and Gaara's poor captives.

"You...those...I can't believe it..."

"You can't believe what?" Naruto asked Bill, who looked weak in the knees.

"Well, lucky for you guys, you've managed to save us some time... catching these chimaeras, _all on your own_," he said. "Do you know how incredibly dangerous that is? I sound like my mum, but still..."

"Well they attacked us first," Naruto said.

"Mm..." Bill was counting the chimaeras inside. "Two...four...five...six...there's one missing. Was this all?" he asked. "Well, I'm not sure whether to be impressed or disappointed or not. You guys managed to capture the entire brood, except for the den mother..."

"Um..." Naruto looked guiltily at the half-eaten meat on his stick. He crammed it inside his mouth, but not soon enough for Bill to have spotted that.

"You _ate_ it?" he said, with a twitch in his eye. He started shaking Naruto. "How could you do that! That was the only grown female in existence! The last of its breed! Do you know how many times the locals had to breed them to get the perfect species? Generations of hard work, and you just _ate_ one of the few legal chimaeras in the world...!"

"Sorry?"

"...Was it good?"

"Not really."

"Okay."

"You think he's schizophrenic?" Naruto asked Gaara. "Because I think he really might be your long lost brother."

"No way," Gaara said. "He's too tall."

"So these, um, lion-dragons are chimaeras?" he asked Bill.

"Yeah. Lion dragons are actually just Chinese dragons, also called the Chinese fireball... They're a bit different though. A bit more dangerous, though deaf. I'd rather deal with these chimaeras than dragons any day."

"What's so special about them?"

Bill pointed at them wildly. "Do you _not _see the lion head, goat body, and dragon tail?"

"But... it's a chimaera. That's normal, isn't it?"

"Well, these are also the first kind that has a bit of a magical... residue, you could say. For instance, the hair that will be used for your wand will have magical properties from the chimaera. Ordinary chimaeras—if you can call them ordinary—don't have this amount of magic. Creatures used for wand cores have a mass amount of magic, like phoenixes, dragons, and unicorns. Other creatures, more ordinary ones like crups and such, have only enough magic to sustain themselves. Just enough to be considered magical creatures. These chimaeras have more amount of magical energy than the ordinary chimaeras, therefore they can be used as a wand core."

'And I just ate one...' Naruto thought, almost feeling guilty about it. Almost. It tasted okay.

"The village is going to have a fit," Bill said sadly. "Well... what they don't know can't hurt them. So just to make this clear, we never found Mommy Chimaera, alright?"

"But we did," Naruto said.

"No, we _didn't_."

"Yeah, we did."

"You don't get it, do you?" Gaara asked Naruto suddenly.

"I don't think so..." he replied.

"We _act_ as if we _never saw it_," Gaara said clearly

"Oooh... okay," Naruto said. "So what was that cat thing that attacked us?"

"Oh, that was the stray nundu that we lost."

"...So we missed it? Just like that?"

"Missed it? We did what we were supposed to do," Bill said. "All we do is track down the nundu. We find it, Apparate away, and tell the other wizards the general area that the nundu is in. And then all of us go and try to catch her without injuring her too bad and losing any of us. We just want to play it safe. Avoid any unnecessary deaths and injuries."

"You mean we could have just finished this by now?"

"Well, I'm sure that the other wizards are moving as quickly as possible to subdue the nundu, although I'm sure that it'll be recaptured and taken back to the Malagasy Magical Creatures reserve at least by...uh... sometime by the end of the day."

"But if _we_ did it, we'd have the nundu thing down in _seconds_!" Naruto complained.

"Tell me, kid, have you ever read the books assigned to you by your Care of Magical Creatures professor? According to the 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them'..." Bill paused. "Uh...hm, how many years has it been...? Anyway, it's one of the most dangerous beasts in existence. Whole villages can be wiped out just by one, and none have been taken down by less than a hundred wizards. Now, there's you, Gaara, and possibly me. How many people does that make?"

"As many as I want," he replied cheekily.

Bill sighed. A nervy brat. Kind of like Ron. But less annoying, as Bill was sad to admit. "You're a cocky kid," he said. Little did he know that Naruto was just the person who was able to back up what he said.

* * *

(1) Daisan no Me: Gaara's floating eye technique. And just wondering, but if there's a fourth eye, would it be Daiyon/Daishi no me? And fifth is Daigo no me, then Dairoku no me? I'm not really a Japanese speaker. More like a pathetic wannabe who studies too much from friends. In any case, if anyone knows a bit of Japanese that might help, it would be greatly appreciated...T-T 

(2) You know what I mean? I mean, when I was a kid and went to the park downtown, me and my brother and sister would run down the hill at top speed until we ran only to keep the upper half of our body from falling forward. The inertia, I suppose. We end up running only because if our legs stop or slow down, the rest of our body would fall forward. Maybe it only happened to me because I'm weird?

Okay, this chapter was completely pointless. Originally, it was about thirty or so pages of complete bullshit. Now, I have reduced it down to about eighteen. Hooray. Sorry for the long wait. And um... yeah. I'm starting to hurry things up... I already have the first tasks planned out on paper. Just need to type up some things. The only thing that sucks is that I have a notebook and... I can't read my handwriting. So I give up easily and take lots and lots of breaks, so yeah.

* * *

I hope I haven't lose too many toes... A certain sadistic psycho reviewer will probably know what I mean. (shudder) The things people think up of to torture me... But personally, I think true hell would be trying to eat a peanut butter sandwich through a straw. God, that'd be horrible. I do love sandwiches though... (sigh) This one was only 18 pages, but the next one is going to be a killer. For me, not you. Well, maybe you too. I'm just glad I'm almost done with that one too. I'll update within a week and a half if I'm lucky.  
I'm afraid I didn't live up to my standards and may Bill all wrong. He's supposed to be a calm guy, but he freaked out when Naruto ate the chimaera. And is that how you spell chima(e)ra? I don't know...

* * *

A few notes to certain readers: 

**darkflame**: Yeah, but Shikamaru hasn't really seen Naruto fight yet. I mean, actually in the manga, I don't think he's seen even the first rasengan yet, but oh well. Either way, I'm sure Shikamaru's going to be surprised by how much Naruto's actually grown. The only ones who have seen his progress is Jiraiya, Sakura, Kakashi, maybe Gaara, and maybe someone else whom I've forgotten. As for no jutsus... well... heh. Anyway, it's nice to know the Anbu's got my back. Hope they hold against the masses.  
**brian**: You set a mob on me and stuck me on a WANTED SIGN? Holy crap you suck and I hate you. You are a very cruel person. How could you do this to me! (runs away from the mob and freaking out) Okay, okay, I guess we're even. I kill you with laughter, you set a mob on me. It just feels so unfair... T-T Haha. j/k. About the you suck and I hate you part, because you know I loooove you!  
**The Therapist**: ...I've got my own therapist! Brilliant! I really need you! Haha, yeah... Hope you get your head back...  
**setjeroo**: Hm... a food fight... sure. Sounds fun, actually... I was planning on something similar, but this will do just as well... heeheehee. As for the past accomplishments... nah. They don't know who Yondaime is, anyway. Not this year. As for the quidditch tournament, in the book (and in this fic) Dumbledore said that the quidditch matches and Quidditch Cup were not to take place this year. Food fight is somewhere between here and first (official) task. No duel club. The duel club...well there's enough stuff in this fic already. The tasks take up so much time... But I will promise you that there will be a duel club in the very distant future. Not this year though. I need to leave something interesting for the rest... so don't be angry. (backs away as you turn green...) "Uh... yeah." And noooo, Anko's not using the Sexy no Jutsu... not quite. Because the way I see it, the Sexy no jutsu means you change gender. Mehehehe... but the technique she pulls off... it's going to be a bit different, though I'm sure you've read it before if you're this far. Sadly enough, I hope you will review. Because Anko's assault won't be for while. Chapter 27 at latest, perhaps, since I don't know where to stick it in there.  
**amanda**: Haha, I know what you mean. I mean, I read a fic, and he's like, "I'm too scared to love" and the girl's like, "Don't worry... I'll show you... in time..." Gaaag-glorck-chocking... Save me... kill Mary Sue... Heeeeelp! Oh, and I hate emos. No offense to emos, but to me, they're just Goths who dress very nicely. What worries me is that I think, perhaps, the majority of my friends are emos. Which may mean I am one to... I hate myself?-!-?-! EH?  
**anonomous**: "Ah, you see, but there's a big hole in your scheme! Gaara and Sasuke may not be on my side, but _they are my puppets_! Muahahaha! No one can defy my order, for I am... The Author..." (from behind me, Sasuke pulls out a string and begins to strangle me...) me: "Urglagh!" (and then Gaara tries to bury me in sand. With Sasuke) me and Sasuke: "WTF! AAAAH!" And then Gaara and Sasuke start fighting over who kills me. Me: "Shit... I am so dead..." Crushed by sand or toasted like... like toast. Either way, I'm not gonna make it... T-T  
**Anonymous**: I like the yo-yo/Baseball Rasengan idea. Pure brilliance. I don't get the mathematical part, but I do like that. Now I've got a nice idea in my head. Expect to see it by the end of the fic. Or at least in the next one, if not this one.  
**Dragonblack**: I wasn't really sure whether an Animagus Naruto would be a normal fox or a nine-tailed one...sadly enough, I can't have all shinobi being Animagi. There will be one... but probably not someone whom you would ordinarily expect... Still, who needs to be an animagus when you can henge yourself into anything else? (then again, animagi don't turn back to normal if hit...) I'll keep your idea in mind though.  
**Anonomys**: Of course I'm not _evil_ (shifty eyes...). I'm just... misunderstood. And I'm not sure comparing me to Ibiki is a good thing, but I'll pretend it is, haha. And yes, the shinobi are going to go through a few... difficulties... (I can't wait until BEEP BEEP BEEP (censored our to prevent spoiling...))  
**Fandago**: No pressure, eh? Hope you didn't make too big a mess...  
**amandana**: Aw... I don't think I can live without the rambling... T-T As for the toes... damn you're mean. That really does hurt. T-T And the fanclubs... are going crazy around here.  
**Sk8er7**: That's very nice. If you don't like GaaSaku, that's your own problem, not mine. And if you want to try to re-organize my pairings, go ahead and try. It started as an attempt to keep things even for the Yule Ball, and then I grew to enjoy writing for these couples, so I'll thank you to avoid insulting pairings, especially since it isn't as if it has been done before. There are plenty of GaaSaku fics out there, just as there are NaruHina and NejiTentens (though not as much in abundance).  
So I apologize. I am not going through 22 chapters, plus a whole notebook of roughly fifty eight sheets of notes times 3 or 4 since I write three or four rows in one line, just because you don't like GaaSaku and SasuIno. It's different from the ordinary SasuSaku and Ino-burns-in-hell-or-supports-best-friend fic, but I'm afraid you will have to put up with it because I'm not going through all of this and changing it because you don't like two pairings in here.  
As for Naruto's denseness, I understand how you feel about that. Several other reviewers have brought this to my attention. However, I do want to bring it to your attention that Naruto is a bit clueless. Naïve, as one reader so accurately put it. Frankly, I don't care for your opinion. It's nice to know that there's a diversity of opinion, but... I guess I don't mean to completely offend you. Maybe I've just read the same review twice, or maybe you really are just dwelling on things.  
And Naruto is an idiot. But only at times. In my opinion, which is obviously not yours, he is really a genius. But only in battle. Only when it really counts. There are several occasions in which he doesn't pull through, but in the end, he always manages the impossible. It's like, "You beat me now, but I get you in the long run." He acts like an idiot, but in the end, he always wins everyone over with a long speech, a fist in the face, the occasional head butt, and an ingenious idea.  
**anonomous**: AAAGH! MY DESSERT! PLEEEASE GIVE IT BAAACK! You're evil side is... urm, well, evil. So mean... getting this chappie out ASAP, thanks to you... T-T  
**Novagod5**: I'm so sorry, please stop crying...! (freaking out) Here's your update!  
**shadowspirit005**: You have two weeks to get _my_ favorite quotes off of your profile before hell breaks out and chaos ensues.

Oh, and I am now in a forum for fanfiction writers! It's awesome! PM me for the URL thingie (or try to get me online, but I haven't been on for a while...) and come register and I'll love you forever!

And, once again, sorry about the late update. And thank BasicallyanIdiot for this. For her contribution to future parts in my story, I update sooner than expected! And uh... sorry to the betas for not waiting for a response. Really really really sorry.

And no, I'm not telling any of you what Naruto's wand is made of until... until... (hm...) until something happens.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23: A Declaration of War

(I cut out the nundu part... too tiring to write it out. A note to self tells me to re-edit all cut scenes once I've finished this fic or when I get bored...)

* * *

"Hello my underlings, your future hokage is here!" Naruto announced to the shinobi, who were waiting outside of the fireplace in the infirmary. "Oh, and Gaara too." 

"The _current_ kazekage," Gaara muttered, shaking soot out of his sandals. Sand wasn't too bad. He could get sand out of his clothes and shoes. Soot, on the other hand, was irritating.

Naruto grinned. "Does anyone have any food?" he asked them. "We're starving!"

The other shinobi traded glances, before pulling out sacks of candy, as if they had taken every single item Honeyduke's Sweetshop. "Yeah...we have a bit of a problem," Sasuke muttered under his breath.

"What is it, bastard?" Naruto asked him, stuffing three chocolate frogs in his mouth.

"The fan clubs are... getting a bit out of control," Neji said with a sigh. "For instance, I came back to my rooms a short while ago to find that my bed is covered in cards, candy, money, and all sorts of odd assortments. Several of them doused in love potions."

"That was nowhere near as bad as mine," Sasuke said. "I come back to find that pug-faced _Pansy girl_ sitting in my bed in what she must _believe_ to be sexy lingerie. On _her _body? Gods no! I got sick. Right after dinner as well!" He shuddered.

"Remind me to kill her later," Ino said thoughtfully.

"No killing in the school year, no maiming in the classroom," Kankurou reminded them. "People here are crazy..."

"Talk about it," Sakura said from a bed. "I come here for one day, and the waiting room is filled with boys I don't even know."

"Like who?" Gaara said innocently. Well, more casual than innocent. He couldn't get the innocent tone down yet, but he was getting there.

"I don't know..."

"Ah. And why the hell are you in here anyway?" he asked her, looking at a licorice wand. Absurd. It was just a stick of licorice.

"Oh, um... I was just... your mail... like... yeah..." she babbled nervously.

"Oh don't tell me..." Gaara said in a voice that seemed to steadily grow angrier and angrier, despite the fact it was just a brief phrase.

Sakura gulped nervously.

"...the Makotos _bombed_ you?-!"

"Huh?" Sasuke and Ino laughed at the look of disbelief on Gaara's face and the confusion on Sakura's. "N-no! Don't kill them. It wasn't their fault. It isn't want it looks like," she said, motioning towards the burns and bandages on her arms.

"Well, to me, it looks like they were trying to blow _me_ up..." he muttered.

"Um... well no," she said hesitantly. "I was... well... you won't be mad at me, right?"

"It wouldn't make any difference if I was angry with you," Gaara said. He resisted the temptation to roll his eyes at the expression on her face. "I won't be mad at you," he said firmly.

"Well... I was going through your mail... and I finished the Makotos'... and then I finished it and saw a pink envelope... and then I picked it up and, um, it blew up in my face."

"Why did I have a pink envelope?" Gaara asked.

"I don't know," Sakura said shiftily.

"Malfoy sent it," Sasuke said. "I forgot to tell you guys, but it was Malfoy."

"Lemme get this straight," Kankurou said, holding up his hands. "_Draco Malfoy_ sent _our brother_ a _love letter_?"

"I knew it!" Kiba said, jumping up to his feet excitedly. "Just wait 'til we tell the world! He's gay!"

"Duh," Ino said. "I mean, who on earth gets up at such ridiculous hours just to fix his hair? And he reads _Witch Weekly_, too!" Shino coughed.

"He's not gay," Sasuke said, looking annoyed by everyone's random assumptions. "Well, he might be, but he sent the letter and purposely hexed it! Was I the only one paying attention at our last meeting? Malfoy and his Slytherin goons couldn't get Gaara in his sleep because he never slept! And they noticed that he got a lot of mail daily from some anonymous senders, which are actually messages from the Sand and the Makotos, and they decided to try and get him through that! Idiots!"

"I knew that," Kiba muttered.

"So then," Ino said. "It looks like this is war."

"We can't kill Malfoy," Naruto said. Gaara sulked at this.

"No, but we can make his life a living hell while we can. Just so long as we don't get caught and don't get anything less than perfect on our performances in class," Shikamaru said.

"So no killing, no violence, in other words..." Naruto said with a nasty grin on his face. "...It's time for the greatest prankster in all of Konoha to return." The rest of the shinobi felt a chill make its way down their backs, even worse than the times that Gaara had threatened to kill them.

"So what did you do when you left?" Kiba asked brightly, changing the subject.

"Oh yeah, haha, did you know that there's a huge island called Madagascar?" Naruto asked them all. "It's big! Like, the size of the Thunder Country! Huge! And that's only the third largest island! Africa is supposed to be fifty times bigger!" he said excitedly. The shinobi all muttered amongst themselves at this new information, with the exception of Shikamaru of course. The few wizards in the infirmary noticed the shinobi's astonishment at this fact.

"That's _huge_," Temari said in awe.

"Well, compared to this world, our home is much smaller," Shikamaru said. "There are several uncharted territories, but it's starting to get settled. Slowly, but it is," Shikamaru said. "There are places in our world that few ever reach, and none ever come back from. Still, using common sense, with all nine countries, the two oceans, and the unclaimed territory, it's still easy to tell that our world is much smaller and less heavily populated. People here multiply like animals. Larger in every which way..." He frowned. "Which reminds me of something..."

"What?"

"I got a letter from the Ministry of Magic regarding my grades..." he said.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Naruto asked. Shikamaru shrugged.

"Just thinking," he replied.

"Um... anyway, yeah, so Gaara and I went to Madagascar where there's some sort of wildlife reserve for magic animals. We were supposed to get chimaera and nundu hairs for our wands, but they escaped. So me and Gaara and a guy named Bill who turns out to be Ron's cooler older brother went as scouts for the things, and then the nundu attacked us and Bill tried to Disappear with us but something messed up and we ended up on the other side of the island. And then me and Gaara went up the mountain, got jumped by chimaeras, kicked their asses, ate the Momma Chimaera, and got found by Bill and went back to the village. We left in groups of three again and Gaara and I found the nundu and kicked the shit outta it! It was huge! And it smelled funny! But then... after that... it was horrible," Naruto said, immediately growing serious again.

"What happened?" Sasuke asked him.

"Well, we took them to Ollivander's Wand shop... how they managed to fit the things in there, I have no idea," Naruto said. "And then we shaved them! Yeah, that was funny. But what happened next wasn't..."

"What?" the shinobi asked.

"We spent the next eight or ten hours looking for the _right hair_. It was exhausting and my arms are all achy!" Naruto complained. "Do you know how many single hairs these things have?"

"No," Kiba said.

"Well, I don't either, but it was a _lot_!" Naruto and (most) of the others

Gaara froze for a moment. All of a sudden, he jumped to the floor behind Sakura's bed.

"..." Everyone stared at him funny, but they realized why when Madam Pomfrey burst into the room.

"It's midnight! Stop laughing and disturbing the patients and get out!" she screeched. The shinobi all scattered in different directions until they found their way to the door and left.

Sakura, a patient, and Gaara, hiding behind the bed, exchanged glances until the school nurse left and doused the light with a wave of her wand once she was content with the silence.

"That's pretty sad, you know?" she said to Gaara.

"What is?"

"You're kazekage. Youngest in the history of kages. One of the most feared shinobi in all nine countries. And you're scared of the school nurse."

"...True," Gaara admitted begrudgingly.

"So what, are you going to stay here all night?" Sakura asked him.

"I don't see why not. I don't really need any sleep after all, so what's the use of going to bed?"

"What's the use of staying here all night?"

"I _live _to take unnecessary life-threatening risks. It's a hobby of mine, really. That's why I dare to stick with you when you spend so much time in the infirmary with that blasted nurse..."

She laughed quietly. "The coast is clear, by the way," she said. Gaara got back up on his feet and sat down in one of the chairs the others left behind.

"That woman..." Gaara muttered. Sakura grinned.

"So... why are you scared of her again?"

"I'm not the one scared. It's others who should be scared of her obsession with me. She's attempted to drug my food with sleeping potions and all sorts of strange things meant to knock me unconscious..."

"Well, that would be very dangerous," Sakura commented, with a sudden ominous feeling growing in her heart. Maybe it was the fear of the consequences should Gaara ever fall asleep or the sadness that Gaara could never do so.

"An understatement," Gaara said.

"Why don't you just tell her why you can't sleep?" she asked him, but she immediately wished she could throw her hands out and eat back her words.

"...Yes, I can see her being perfectly fine with a rampaging, bloodthirsty monster inside of me that could destroy the entire school," Gaara said bluntly. "I can see her not freaking out about that..."

"Eh, yeah, sorry," Sakura said.

"About what?"

"Well, it's a touchy issue, right?" she asked him tentatively.

"No, not really," he lied.

"Oh. And um... sorry I went through your other mail."

"I'm sorry my mail tried to kill you," he shot back.

"It wasn't your fault. It was just a really, really bad prank from Malfoy."

"Well I didn't need to ask you to do my paperwork."

"Everyone deserves to be lazy every once in a while."

"Yes, and they can go relax and sleep too. I, however, don't."

"Ugh, you're angsting, aren't you?" Sakura asked him.

"_What_?"

"When people mope around and feel sorry for themselves."

"I'm _not_ moping," he said firmly.

"Good," Sakura said brightly. "Anyway, there's nothing that's your fault, really. I mean, if anything, we _owe_ you. You saved Lee who saved Naruto and brought Kankurou and Temari who saved Shikamaru and Kiba and Akamaru, you managed to bring peace between Konoha and the sand, and you saved me at the Quidditch World Cup!"

"I also helped lead the attack against the Leaf two years ago, obliterated Lee's arm and leg, and killed a few Konoha shinobi."

"That was years ago! No one really cares!"

"I'm sure the families of the dead think otherwise," Gaara said wryly.

"That's moping again."

"That's voicing my opinion."

"How did we get onto this subject in the first place?" she asked. Anyway, let's just say that we have no obligation towards one another."

"Hn, whatever," Gaara muttered.

"It'd be nicer between two friends if they didn't have to owe each other a debt, right?" she said. If it hadn't been dark in the room, she would have noticed the suspiciously blank look on Gaara's face.

* * *

The next morning in the Great Hall, Neji, Tenten, and Shikamaru were at the Slytherin table again. Neji had found a beetle in his salad and pushed it away distastefully, not feeling very hungry anymore... Sasuke took Gaara's newspaper and paid for it, as the kazekage was probably still...well, not asleep, but hanging out with Sakura. He smirked. His girlfriend was a genius of her own. He didn't bother flipping through the pages of the magazine. That wasn't what grabbed at his attention the most. It was the article on the front page. Frowning, he handed the Daily Prophet to Kankurou, drinking his pumpkin juice. The puppet master glanced at a few lines on the page and then... 

...He spat out his drink laughing, much to everyone's disgust.

"Ew!" Temari shouted, whacking him with a paper fan. "Kankurou, that's gross!"

"Oh, so you think that's funny, do you?" he asked Kankurou. "And that's only Harry's article."

"Wait, they have one on each of us?" Kankurou said. "_Shit_."

"What?" Neji asked them.

"We're ignoring you, be quiet," the puppeteer said, flipping through pages until he found everyone's complete article. "Holy... shit."

Annoyed, Neji grabbed the papers and froze. "'Neji Hyuga, boyfriend of Fleur Delacour according to the happy couple, is the eldest son and purest of the Hyuga clan.' '...A very popular pairing to the wizarding world—' Tenten, I didn't say anything about any relationship between Fleur and me, and I am not a happy anything, let alone a happy couple!"

Tenten said nothing as she continued to spear her eggs and toast.

"Tenten, none of this is tru—AAAAAAH!" She 'accidentally' knocked her milk on his pants. "Tenten, this is unfair! This isn't true and now I have milk on my robes and it's gross and I'm going to stink!"

"Hmph."

Kankurou grabbed back the newspaper and continued to read. "Sabaku Gaara, constant victim to those who betray his trust... attempted assassinations by his own family, including a close uncle Yashamaru... he's a demon... youngest leader of Sunagakure, relationship with Naruto is unconfir—who wrote this, Rita Skeeter? Holy crap, she is dead meat."

"Flip to Naruto's," Sasuke said. "Wait, no, mine first...!"

"Sasuke Uchiha...lone survivor of Uchiha clan...very lonely boy...seek shelter with Orochimaru, a pedophilic old—" Kankurou read until Sasuke swiped the paper away from him.

"Okay then, Naruto's," he said, turning red. "A demon outcast of his village, harboring a destructive beast, hides his pain and true lineage behind a mask of human flesh—"

"That's enough," Shikamaru said. "This is all rubbish."

"Are you sure?" Sasuke asked. "I mean, if he had a demon in him, it would explain why he's so strong sometimes."

"Other than the fact that he might just be a talented shinobi?" the genius asked him with a frown. "Naruto just has a talent for pulling out unexpected surprises out of his sleeve. To say that he is this powerful only because he has a Kyubi in him is an insult to any shinobi."

"How do you know it's the Kyubi then?" Kankurou demanded.

"It's the only demon to have ever attacked Konoha," Shikamaru said. The look he gave them made adding the word, 'Duh', redundant. "It's only logical that if it never died and if someone in Konoha had the beast in him, then the only demon in Konoha would be the Kyubi, of course."

"True," Temari said.

"Now, talking about the Kyubi is taboo," he said. "It bring back unpleasant memories for family and friends of the victims of its attack. And it would also be an insult to Naruto, saying that the only reason he is an exceptional shinobi is that he has the powers of a nine-tailed fox. In any case, we all know these articles are, for the most part, completely inaccurate. Harry Potter's article says he cries at night and is... twelve years old. Two years off. Sasuke's mentions Orochimaru only in a passing comment, indicating he is just an ordinary child molester. Which he is not. Naruto's a demon. Gaara is the last of his family, which makes me wonder who the hell Kankurou and Temari are... Gaara and Naruto are possible couples, and Kankurou, along with Cedric Diggory, don't exist in this article. I don't know anything about Viktor Krum and Fleur Delacour, so I can't say that whether anything in there is completely inaccurate or not, but I do know that Neji and Fleur are not a couple and Neji is not happy."

"See?" Neji said, pointing at Shikamaru. "Even he knows it!"

"Okay, okay, I know," Sasuke said. "Naruto's not a demon. It was just a joke."

"An offensive joke."

"Gee, Shikamaru, I've never seen you so riled up about anything," Temari said thoughtfully. He shrugged.

"But there's also one thing that's really not funny about this," Kankurou announced.

"What?" Neji asked.

"We never gave this much information away in the first place," he said in a serious voice.

"Well I wasn't there, so I couldn't know," Shikamaru said. "But did you put this information in the ministry's files?"

"No...!" Sasuke said. "We need to figure out how she's getting this stuff."

"True..." Temari said. "This really isn't good. Especially considering what she put in there about Gaara. We can't let him see this stuff at all."

"Why not?" Tenten asked.

"You've got to be kidding me. Yashamaru is a _taboo word_ around him," Kankurou said. "He's really touchy about this subject."

"Oh, okay," Sasuke said. "So _who's_ Yashamaru again?" Gaara's siblings glared at him.

"A killer psychotic uncle who made Gaara as psychotic as he was since he was five until about the time that Naruto beat him up," Kankurou said. "The point I was trying to make is that Gaara _never mentions_ Yashamaru. Not for the last... really long time. And how the hell did she find out about our villages? Sunagakure? From the ministry? I don't know..."

Everyone got quiet at this.

"Do you think Gaara read any of this yet?" Temari asked.

"No," Sasuke said. "This is his newspaper. He hasn't gone down to eat or get it yet."

"Good, and we're going to keep it so that he doesn't read it," Temari said firmly. "Where is he?"

"He was in the infirmary with Sakura," Neji answered. "But he's coming down over here right now."

"Crap!" Temari said. "Fine, someone just hand him breakfast and make him leave! Get him his breakfast, somebody!"

"He doesn't even eat breakfast, how are we supposed to know what to get him?" Kankurou getting to his feet.

"Well then why would he want it today if he skips it all the time?" Shikamaru wondered out loud.

"Um... coffee!" Temari said brightly. "He wants coffee!"

"Students don't get coffee," Neji reminded them.

"Which means we have to get a teacher's," Sasuke muttered.

Kankurou got up and ran to Anko and Kakashi, where they were having a heated one-sided conversation.

"So anyway, I kinda feel bad that I ruined his potion yesterday and lost his diary, but I can't say I'm not happy... I mean, this is the first time in forever that I could eat without him staring at me like a hawk. A hawk with creepy black eyes.. and a big nose..."

"His nose isn't that big," Kakashi said to Anko, his own nose buried in his book. "Your perception of other people is badly distorted."

"Everyone agrees with me! It's huge!"

"You make it sound phenomenal."

"Okay, okay, so it's not _huge_-huge, but it's still big," she said. "Anyway, I've got the next thirty-six hours free. He'll be down in the dungeons re-brewing the potions that were screwed up by that mail incident all day long, so I have nothing to do for the rest of the day!"

"...So you're going to handle his classes for him?"

Anko paused, having not thought of that. "...Shit."

"Ahem," Kankurou said, clearing his throat.

"Oh, hey, 'Crow'," Anko said with a grin. "What's up?"

"We need coffee. Now."

"I think you look demented enough without the caffeine," Anko said, although she picked her mug up and tapped it down twice. "Hey, I want coffee!" she ordered, and her drink instantly refilled with black, sugarless coffee, just like Gaara liked it. "I love those little weirdos, with their freakishly huge heads and disproportionately big eyes and bat-ears..." she said dreamily.

Kankurou nearly ran into Gaara as the kazekage began to enter the Great Hall. "OH, HI GAARA!" Kankurou said, blocking the door and speaking in a loud voice that would have done Lee and Gai proud. "I HAVE YOUR BREAKFAST FOR YOU!"

"..." The look on Gaara's face showed his immediate suspicion of Kankurou's intent. "How much do you need?"

"Uh... five Galleons, but, uh... THAT'S NOT THE POINT! MY DEAR SWEET LITTLE BROTHER, I HAVE BROUGHT YOU YOUR NICE HOT STEAMY COFFEE!"

Gaara looked in the mug that his brother presented to him in a subordinate manner, wondering just how much money Kankurou really needed to borrow.

"I want cream and sugar in i—" Kankurou ran back to the front table and came back with a new mug, this time with cream and sugar in it.

"HERE IS YOUR NICE HOT STEAMY COFFEE WITH CREAM AND SUGAR IN IT!"

"Okaaay... eggs, toast, a muffin, and milk."

Kankurou ran back to the Slytherin table, grabbed Draco's breakfast, and returned with the uneaten breakfast.

"EGGS, TOAST, A MUFFIN, AND MILK, ALONG WITH YOUR NICE HOT STEAMY COFFEE WITH CREAM AND SUGAR IN IT!" Twelve seconds... Gaara had never seen his brother move this quickly before.

"...Now clean my room, wash my robes, and do my Arithmancy project."

"Hell no!"

'I knew this was too good to be true... The world is short on mind-slaves...' Gaara thought. "Now move, my owl has my mail too and I'm already behind."

"Don't you...don't you want to drink your hot steaming cup of creamy coffee with sugar and your...your yummy breakfast?"

Yummy? "Okay, Kankurou, what the hell are you up to?"

"Nothing! But... but don't you want your nice hot steamy cup of—"

"You emphasize that thing one more time and you will find my nice, hot, steamy coffee with cream and sugar in it either a) in your face, b) down your shirt, or c) down your pants. Your choice. Either way, you are going to burn or let me in."

"Let's eat outside!" Kankurou said suddenly. "_Without_ your mail!"

"You have ten seconds to get out of my way or I will kill you."

"W-what? I mean, um..."

"Temari, you might want to get Madam Pomfrey, because your stupid brother is going to die."

"Uh...um..." Alarms were going off in Kankurou's head. He had already passed the point of no return. There was no going back after stalling Gaara for this long, so there was only one thing left to do. Stall Gaara longer to prevent him from both receiving his mail and killing him. "You...You NEVER have cream in your coffee! You hate it!"

"Your point being...?"

"You don't eat breakfast!"

"Get to the point if you want a nice, quick, and easy death."

"You're bringing this food up to the infirmary, aren't you?-! You have the hots for Sakura!" The entire Great Hall went quiet, and Kankurou braced himself for a sandy death, but was surprised to hear...

"Give me the breakfast."

"_What_?"

"You heard me. Give it."

"Um... okay," Kankurou said, handing him the tray with the coffee on the side. There was a resounding 'pop!' as the cork flew from Gaara's gourd and bounced on to the tiled floor.

"...Gaara?"

"I just didn't want to ruin my _eggs, toast, muffin, and my 'nice hot steamy cup of coffee with sugar and cream'_," he sneered. Kankurou went pale under his face paint. There was a small 'shhh' sound as sand began to pour out of his gourd on its own.

"Uhm...shit."

Gaara left the room immediately once tossing his brother out of the now-broken window in the Great Hall. As he walked, the stream of sand from his gourd was recollecting itself, filling up the gourd once again. He made sure no one was following after him as he strode away so no one could see the faint red tinge on his face.

* * *

"Gaara, are you okay?" Sakura asked him as he returned to the infirmary with Sakura's breakfast. 

"You're the one in the hospital bed," he said bluntly.

"Well, you just look a little flushed..."

"I was running," he lied.

"With your gourd? Isn't that a bit heavy to be running around with?" Sakura asked. "If you ran from the Great Hall all the way over here with that gourd on your back, I'm sure that you would have probably passed out in the hallway by now. Gods know what will happen if that happens. So tell me, what really happened?"

"My brother is psychotic," Gaara said.

"Maybe it runs in the family," she commented thoughtfully. "But what did he do? And what did you do to him?"

"Anyway, nothing dangerous really happened," he said, skipping over the scene where he threw his brother out of an unopen window with a thick tendril of sand. "But Kankurou seems to have a funny idea in his head, you see? He's acting strange. First, he's trying to keep me out of the Great Hall and wants to keep me from getting my mail..." He paused, remembering that he had forgotten it. "And, anyway... then he kind of, um, confessed my undying love for you for me. Very loudly. So if anyone says anything... funny about you and me... it was just Kankurou. Kankurou being weird. Yeah. He's acting different. Expect to see him doing cartwheels down the corridors in a clown suit and hippie colored makeup."

"That would be mildly frightening," Sakura said. "Muffin?"

"No thanks," he said. Now, _this_ silence was uncomfortable, much unlike the one from when they just sat together on the rooftop in Sunagakure.

"Um...Sorry about the letter bomb..."

"Huh? Oh no, not again... it wasn't your fault!"

"The pink threw you off. I should have just told the Makotos to stick with normal wrapping paper and just sign it with their normal names."

"Well... I knew it wasn't from them," she said hesitantly.

"What?"

"Well, I was pretty sure it wasn't theirs. It was pink, but it wasn't a blaring pink color..."

"So you opened a package with no name on it, even though you knew it wasn't the Makotos."

"Well, it looked like the kind of message that would stay... unsigned."

"Explain."

She shifted in bed uncomfortably. "Um, it was a _pretty_, light pink envelope, with a purple ribbon on it. It was, um, really frilly. And it smelled like someone sprayed it with light perfume... and um, it said, 'For Gaara's eyes only'..."

"And so you looked at it."

Sakura frowned. "I'm really, _really_ sorry, Gaara," she said. "Are you mad at me?"

"Are you going to drink that coffee?"

"I take that as a yes?"

"Me too," Gaara said.

Sakura sighed and quietly opened her newspaper, supplied to her by Madam Pomfrey.

"I'm not mad," he said to her. "Not at you or that you went through my mail. You should know that no matter where I am or where I go, people try to do things to me. Haven't you heard? It's as if I have a huge bull's eye target on my forehead instead of _Ai_."

"Well, I did hear some kids spontaneously jump at you and try to scare you, only to get pounded into the ground, but nothing about mail..."

"I warned you not to open anything else."

"Well, I thought you just wanted your privacy..."

"I do, but I've given up on wishing for it. Still, it's nice to pretend that I have a private life..."

"Yeah..." Sakura said, staring at her newspaper in shock. "Yeah, I think I know what you mean... And why Kankurou was trying to stop you from getting your mail..."

"Hn?"

She showed him his article. Gaara read the article and made a funny sound at the back of his throat, a strange mixture of a frustrated groan and an angry growl.

"This... bullshit..." he said.

"Um... coffee?" Sakura asked him. Gaara took it gratefully and downed it in one gulp. Hot! And creamy! And nasty! But still a bit sweet. Gaara turned red and coughed a bit. Indirect kiss... hot coffee... nasty and sweet... he wasn't sure what to feel at this point: sick or happy. Or sick _and_ happy.

"I think I'm going to have to do something with this Rita Skeeter," he said with an air of calm, folding up the Daily Prophet.

"Have fun, but don't kill her," Sakura said.

"I won't," Gaara assured her. Perhaps he couldn't kill her without a customer paying him for an assassination, but in some way, he could probably at least retaliate.

* * *

"Shino," Gaara said to the Aburame before the third class of the day started. Sakura had already left for her Arithmancy, and Gaara was moving quickly to get to his other class and find the shinobi in the hallway before History of Magic began. 

"...?" Shino looked up from his clipboard with a stack of parchment and a few article clippings in it. He had an owl on his desk and was about to send away a message.

"I know what you're doing," Gaara said, holding up several articles of Witch Weekly. "'Trump Card'. You've been doing this for a while."

"A few weeks," Shino admitted.

"I need help with a certain pest," Gaara said to him.

"Rita Skeeter," he replied. "Am I right?"

"Yes."

"It's all being done, though I could use some primary resources and a bit of editing before I send this off."

"Anything you want. Just prove her wrong on all accounts."

"By the end of the year, I'll have it so that people are going to make her out to be a raging nutcase with an obsession with little children and traumatic stories. Hopefully."

* * *

That night, all of the shinobi were gathered, once again, making their plans of warfare. It was them against the world, but if people were thinking they were going down without a fight, they had another thing coming. Sasuke came in a little late with a smirk on his face. 

"Go on..." he said. "Sorry about being late. I was delayed by slightly more important matter..."

"Ah, well, first order of business," Naruto said in a formal manner, "Draco Malfoy. A year long attack, him versus us, seems a bit one-sided. We'll have to keep it organized. Therefore, we shall form the 'Torture Draco Malfoy' committee. Any suggestions for committee leader? If no one steps up, I'll take over."

"I will," Gaara said.

"Great! Anyone else wants to be vice-president? No one? Okay then, who is joining." Hands went up.

Naruto started writing down names. "Okay, under Sabaku Gaara is Uchiha Sasuke, Yamanaka Ino, Sabaku Kankurou, Sabaku Temari, and... um, are you raising your hand Shikamaru?"

Temari was holding his hand up in the air for him.

"How troublesome..." he said. "Well, I suppose I am now..."

"Great. Anyway, that's all? Okay. Next is the Daily Prophet issue," Naruto said. "Let's all get this straight... Attention all of you: I am _not_ a demon. That is all. Okay, not really. I'm not finished yet. Who's taking Skeeter down?"

Shino raised his hand, much to everyone's surprise. "It's only natural," he said, "that in a war of the media, it would be most effective to play their own game, their rules. It's most satisfying to take them down by their own means."

"Huh?" Most of the shinobi were confused.

"Meet 'Trump Card', anonymous reporter for Witch Weekly," Gaara said.

Hinata blushed. She had sent him a letter requesting advice for very personal matters... Oops.

"That's...odd," Sakura said. You wouldn't expect someone as silent as Shino to write the long detailed reports that Trump Card did.

"He's sent an article to Witch Weekly," Gaara said. "A personal interview, and a verbal assault on the Daily Prophet's article."

Some of the shinobi clapped enthusiastically for their friend.

"Now for the serious stuff," Shikamaru said, interrupting their cheer. "We need to figure out how Rita Skeeter gets her dirt. Suggestions?"

"We follow her, of course," Temari said. "All we have to do is get maybe a tracking technique on her. We all have our methods, right? Everyone be ready. Next time you see her, make sure you get her."

"Also, some people aren't very gullible here as we make them out to be," Neji said. "They've been looking into us, trying to spy on us and find out about who we really are. Does anyone have any suggestion as to what to do about this?"

"We can't tell them anything," Sakura said. "Whatever we do, we have to show them. Accidentally. It's obvious they won't believe anything we say. We have to let them find out things about us on their own. If we want to get them to believe our stories, then we want to let them find out whatever we want them to find out. Maybe let them overhear things 'about us', even if it isn't true."

"I think I get what Sakura means," Ino said. "They don't believe our story, so we let them find out more about us on their own. So long as what they find out is different from what we actually tell them, and also different from the truth."

"...Huh?" Kiba scratched his nose.

"I get it!" Naruto said excitedly.

"You're kidding me," the Inuzuka said. 'I'm confused, and _he_ gets it...'

"It's like what I do! People go follow me around and think I don't know about it, and they 'accidentally' overhear me saying whatever I want them to believe! Like some people were staring at me today because of that damn Skeeter's article, but then I went to you, Kiba, and was like, 'Daaaamn, everyone thinks I'm a goddamn monster, those stupid assholes, believing everything in the Daily Prophet...' And then you're like, 'Yeah, like _you_ of all people could be a demon. Gaara? Maybe, but not you.' And then they're all thinking, 'Okay, so he's not really a demon...oops.' And that's how it's like."

"...Ooh okay," Kiba said. "That makes sense." Sort of. Let them overhear a lie that sounds like the truth.

"So we leave out false evidence and let them come up with their own conclusions," Shikamaru said. "That could work, but to do that, we have to know what they are doing to find out more about us. Are they just following us around and trying to cast some sort of eavesdropping spell on us? Or are they going as far as to contacting the ministry to find out our history?"

(start stutter) "Um, I heard they were asking around other students to see if we ever do anything strange in or out of class," (end stutter) Hinata said.

"So we spread rumors about ourselves?" Naruto suggested, having experience in throwing people off-track.

"That would help," Sakura said. "But we also need to know who they are asking."

"I could do that," Ino said confidently. "All _I_ need is a list of those little nosy buggers."

Sasuke held up a short list of groups. "Fleur Delacour, Viktor Krum, Cedric Diggory are one group. Harry is also trying to find out a little about us, but Hermione and Ron are more enthusiastic in their search about Japanese magic. Kankurou's girlfr—"

"She's _not_ my girlfriend..." Kankurou muttered.

"Technically, she is your girlfriend until you finally break up with her," Ino quipped. "So she _is_ your girlfriend. Too bad for you."

"But she's so... so clingy..." he whined. "And it's completely your fault! I don't want her anymore..."

"Then be a man and break up with her already," she said, rolling her eyes.

"She'll hit me or something! She's a girl!"

"Well _I'll_ hit you too if you keep complaining about her..."

"Will we get back on track?" Sasuke asked. "Anyway, Sarea Moon is also being a bit nosy about us. That Rita Skeeter woman, obviously, with her article and all. That's all the more enthusiastic 'detectives' of our school."

"Great," Ino said, making a copy of Sasuke's list. "I'll find out who they are asking and stuff, and I'll tell you guys. And then some of you all need to get those people out of the way or something. Like, distract them in another place while another group replaces them and gives them the information."

"The books in the library," Naruto said. "I remember when Hermione and Ron were dragging me around in there, they were looking up books on us."

"Destroy the books?" Tenten suggested.

"That's too obvious," Shikamaru said. "We need to... well we can't hide the books or else they'll know that we know too. But the more accurate books on us are in Japanese, so we can do one of three things. Destroy the translating reading glasses in the library, change the spell on the reading glasses to let them read whatever we want them to read, or actually manually—or magically—change the information in the book by ourselves. The first choice is a bit obvious, the second will require a bit of talent when it comes to modifying advanced spells, and the third would take a lot of time and neat handwriting."

"All of the above," Sakura suggested. "Well, if possible, of course. Maybe not the first. Crack the glasses a little to make it a bit annoying. It'll stall for time, give them a headache, and hopefully make them try to spend more time reading English versions, since they're more inaccurate."

"I'll send our plans to the Makotos. They have way too much time on their hands. And they're good with paperwork. So one could be changing the information in the book, and the other will be studying spell modifications for the Translating Lens."

"I have a list of all possible suspects who may have anything to do with entering Harry in the tournament," Shikamaru announced.

"Really?" Naruto said excitedly. "How much?"

"One thousand five hundred and sixty-two Hogwarts students, eighteen Hogwarts Professors, thirty-two Beauxbatons students, Madam Maxime and that carriage driver, twenty-nine Durmstrang students, Albus Dumbledore, Jiraiya, Bartemius Crouch, and Cornelius Fudge."

"..." Everyone stared at Shikamaru as if he was a crazy idiot, which he was not.

"_Jiraiya_?"

"_Dumbledore_?"

"_Crouch_?"

"_Everyone_?-!"

"_Yes_."

"What the fuck are you thinking, you idiot?" Ino cried. "It's going to take all year to get through all of that shit! By the time we're done, if Neji and Sasuke haven't finished Harry off, then whoever's actually _trying_ to kill him _will_ kill him!" ("Hey...we aren't that bad as teachers...")

"Okay, okay, you guys are calling me an idiot, then tell me this: whoever has a IQ over 200, raise your hand." Shikamaru raised his own hand and checked to see who else did.

"Just wondering," Naruto said, "but what does IQ stand for anyway?"

"It doesn't matter, you don't have it," he said, almost smugly. "So don't doubt my intelligence. I just haven't eliminated all of the impossible subjects yet. Frankly, because none of them _are_ impossible. Unlikely, yes. Impossible, no. Perhaps some factors would immediately eliminate some suspects in this 'case', but we all know that we are no longer even in our own world. Magic throws everything off. So, instead of completely eliminating certain people, I have several sheets of parchment. Five categories: Not likely, Perhaps, Possible, Maybe, and Likely."

"Why is there no 'Impossible' sheet?" Ino asked, not used to this change in categories.

Shikamaru sighed. "Because in this world, nothing can be considered impossible. People here can physically change into another person, almost permanently change one's appearance with a potion and change it back with another. They can control others with spells, like the Imperious Curse. You could also change one's memories with enough talent. The possibilities are nearly endless.

"_Anyway_, with a certain spell, I can arrange these names in one of two orders: ordered by years from youngest to oldest, or by magical talent. In any case, they are almost the same thing, although there are several different factors within that as well," Shikamaru said, laying out the parchments side by side and casting a spell to make it one large sheet. "Now it's quicker to eliminate suspects than reason why they could be our enemy. So..." He took out his wand and began dragging certain names from some sides of the page and dropped a few on the 'Not Likely' list.

"If this is the work of the Imperious curse, it would be harder to catch the spellcaster. Therefore, we will stick with who physically did it, if not purposely."

"How are we supposed to find that out?" Kiba asked. Ino frowned at that question...

"Ino. She'll find out. I list and eliminate the least likely of suspects, and she eliminates the most probable. It's the same as if she climbs down a ladder, I climb up, and then we meet each other halfway."

"Aw," Ino groaned. "This is going to take forever..."

"Well then we better start soon," Shikamaru said to her, handing her the top stacks.

"How do you expect her to go through... one thousand six hundred and forty seven people?" Sasuke asked.

"Technically, it's eight hundred and twenty-three and a half, but since you can't have half a person... well, you can, but not in this case... but since you can't have half a person, it's somewhere around that number. But there's also the fact that I move more quickly than Ino and will meet her higher up on the ladder. You, having spent the last two and a half years in the Sound, have never seen Ino doing something that she has actually put her mind on. She's good, and doesn't need you to stand up for her just because she wants to avoid a little work."

"As flattering as it is, coming from Shikamaru, I'd still rather avoid this headache," Ino said sadly, glancing at the list. "Why the heck are Dumbledore and Jiraiya and everyone on here anyway?"

"How many _students_ would be able cast a charm strong enough to overcome a centuries-old magic cup?" Shikamaru said. "There _are_ a few exceptional witches and wizards who can do such a thing with few difficulties, but not very many. The cup, as strange as it sounds, is strong. Therefore, that knocks off a bunch of people from your 'Maybe' and 'Likely' list."

"But why Dumbledore and Jiraiya of all people?" Kiba asked. "Dumbledore _hired_ us to protect Potter, and Jiraiya's on _our_ side."

"Yes, _but_ what if they weren't the ones purposely doing it? The Imperious curse? Perhaps they are strong enough to resist it, but you never know... Or maybe it wasn't even them at all. Someone could be disguised as someone else. Jiraiya _did_ appear at a suspicious time, but... that's just him, so maybe not. You can't ever eliminate people without considering all possibilities."

"Well even if it _is_ someone high up there being controlled, then how do we find who's the _real_ enemy?" Ino asked.

"Well you can ask a Hyuga for proof," Shikamaru said, "but magic leaves traces. The Imperious curse is nearly impossible to find, but not completely. Every spell cast can be traced back to the spellcaster with experience like that of an auror—a Dark wizard 'hunter' that works for money hired by the Ministry of Magic, almost like ourselves. Fortunately, we don't need to be here long to be able to learn to spot magic. We have the Hyugas for that. All Neji and Hinata have to do is be able to trace old magic."

Neji nodded. "I can see magic until about a week after it is cast if the spell is particularly strong. I remember the second lesson with Professor Moody, and the spell was like a thread and almost impossible to see, but it could still be spotted if you're looking out for it," he said.

"Look for all kinds of suspicious magic here at Hogwarts," Shikamaru ordered. "And keep an eye out for Rita Skeeter."

They all paused, hearing some other students enter the common room, talking amongst themselves. After the incident in which they had been caught off guard by a wizard _student_ off all things, they weren't willing to risk a chance by a simple _prank_.

Sasuke smirked as the other shinobi scrambled for cover. They hadn't expected that they'd just be hanging out this long.

Naruto began going for the window, when he paused. "Hey, the Slytherin house is _under_ the Black Lake. How the heck do you get windows?"

"Naruto."

"Yeah, Gaara?"

"Don't. Touch. The glass."

Naruto got the point and warily edged away from the wall. "...Let's start meeting in the Ravenclaw house instead..." he said nervously.

"We need to get out," Ino said thoughtfully. "Either someone makes a big distraction so we can leave, or we need another way out that—"

"Done," Sasuke said from his bed.

"What is?" Naruto asked him.

"Pull the bookshelf forward. Not left. Not right. _Forward_. And then push it left. On the floor, there is a snake scratched into the stone. No more snake-talk needed for now. Ino, you open the door with your ring. Tap on it with a wand and say open."

"Why Ino?" Naruto asked.

"Because I said so. When the tunnel appears, you go straight. Fifty feet into the tunnel, you'll see a three-way split. To straight. Another fifty feet, another split. Go left. Another fifty, go left again. Then you'll see a dead-end. Ino, tap on it and say _'Rubralea' _and go straight forward. It'll lead to the Gryffindor dormitory." He smirked at their amazement as Naruto pulled the shelf out and left and Ino spoke in a serpent-like language. A tunnel appeared.

"H-how did you manage _this_?" Naruto said in amazement.

"A lot of spoons," Sasuke said. They stared at him. "I was _joking_."

"Oh."

"I just found it..." he said vaguely in response to their questioning stares.

"Oh, and are you sure about the _Rubralea_ instead of –_leo_?" Ino asked. "Because last time we tried it, we ended up—"

"I'm sure..." Sasuke said, giving Ino an amused look. Their eyes met for a moment and Ino laughed.

"Okay," she said with a smile. "Come on," she said to the non-Slytherins as they left through Sasuke's tunnel. "We'll end up in Gryffindor, but after that, the Ravenclaws can get out through the window or something." The others went in the tunnel with Ino leading the way with a lit wand and the bookshelf moved back in its original position on the wall by itself.

"So uh, what's with the lea-leo thing?" Kankurou asked. "What happened last time...?"

Sasuke glanced at them and smirked. "Well, you're all Slytherin. You can keep secrets. _Rubraleo_ leads to the boys' dormitory in the Gryffindor common room. _Rubralea_... leads to the girls', in which all boys in that room will be magically forced out of the room as the staircase will turn into a slide and start screaming an alert that a boy has tried to or has reached a girl's room."

"...I wish I could see that," the puppet master sighed.

The Slytherin shinobi glanced at Sasuke with a curious look on their faces. He appeared surprisingly peaceful, laying back on his back and staring blissfully at the silver and green Slytherin curtains above him as he counted down to zero. "Ten... nine...eight...seven..."

"What are you doing?" Temari asked.

"Something...three...two...one...—"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"What the fuck?" Kankurou shouted as he stabbed his finger with a screwdriver he had meant to use for his puppets. He sucked on his hand. "Ow...what the hell was that?" Shino, who was now cleaning ink off the floor and clearing away the broken pieces of his ink bottle frowned, though it went unseen, looked at Sasuke inquisitively. He grinned at the Aburame in return. Gaara gave Sasuke a suspicious look but chose not to say anything.

"Hehehe...Malfoy just found an unpleasant surprise on his door," Sasuke said as someone began to angrily knock on his door. His laugh brought chills down everyone's spines as Sasuke opened the door, revealing a slightly flushed Draco holding up a dead snake with a bloodied skull in one hand and a kunai with a note in the other hand. "Uchiha! You did this!"

"Oh? What gave me away?" he asked innocently. "Is it the snake blood on my shirt? The missing knife in my wall collection? Or my signature under your message?"

Draco looked at the note and read it out loud. "'Thank you for hurting Sakura... When you return to your bed, you will find a snake there to bite you in the ass...'" Draco looked up. "There's no name."

"On the other side, genius," Sasuke said.

"'Yours sincerely, Uchiha Sasuke and underlings...'"

"You should pay attention to the first line, by the way," he said lightly.

"What do you mean by _underlings_?" Gaara muttered. "You have Ino. I have a whole _village_. You can't call me an underling; I'm the highest ranking person here."

"Yes, well, when it comes to the purity of blood, I own you _all_," Sasuke said.

"Anyway, Malfoy," Temari said cheerfully, "you should know that when you mess with one of us, you mess with the whole brood. We Asians multiply like _bunnies_." She grinned and slammed the door shut on Malfoy's face. Outside, they could hear Draco stomping away, slamming his door shut as he started complaining loudly to Crabbe and Goyle in the next room. Sasuke glanced at the clock on the wall and continued his countdown once again.

"Six...five...four..."

"What now?" Kankurou wondered.

"Three...two...one—"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"Now what did you do?" Temari asked Sasuke.

"Remember when I warned him to pay attention to the first line: 'Thank you for hurting our friend. When you return to your bed, you will find a snake there to bite you in the ass...'?" Sasuke said. "Well, when you think really hard about it, it translates into 'thank you blah blah blah... When you rest in your home, you will find an enemy there, ready to destroy you'. But, when you read it like a _normal_ person, it means exactly what it says. No hidden message. A snake is in his bed about to bite him in his ass."

"Your snake... wasn't that one of your summoned snakes?" Kankurou asked.

"It _was_," Sasuke said. "But I did it as a favor to Gaara _and_ Sakura."

"What do you mean by that?" Gaara asked him.

"Well, Sakura doesn't like snakes. It seems like I'm too much 'like Orochimaru'. Well I don't want to be like him. And she doesn't like it either. And it seems to me that you don't like Malfoy and things that Sakura doesn't like. So I killed Hebi, since he was giving me cheek all the time. As a warning to what will happen to the rest if they keep on asking for sacrifices which would make things easier for me. I'm down another snake, so Sakura's happier. And Malfoy is now nursing a wound on his ass, so you're hap—dare I say it?—happy."

Gaara glared at him.

"Fine, fine," Sasuke said. "You're _content_. Slytherin-style."

While Temari and Kankurou laughed out loud (and Shino silently), the kazekage just frowned. "I don't care whether you say I'm happy or not. You're not sane. But what do you mean by _I don't like things that Sakura doesn't like_." If Gaara was the type to shout, he would have been shouting right now. However, proper kages don't shout. They 'talk forcefully'.

"I mean just that," he said with a smirk on his face. "After all, _everyone_ heard Kankurou confess your 'hots for Sakura'."

Kankurou began to back out of the room, with a chill making its way down his back.

"Stay. You were just searching for reasons to keep me out of the Great Hall and distract me from it. I'm not going to kill you for _that_. And Uchiha is delusional after two and a half years playing nurse for a seventy year old pedophile."

"I resent that. Orochimaru already has his hands full of Kabuto," Sasuke said. Somewhere in a world, Kabuto shuddered and Orochimaru 'fufufu'-ed.

"..." –

"Well, what are we supposed to say in response to _that_?" Temari wondered. "There's no real appropriate comeback... Gaara, I suggest you do an Anko and say 'You're stupid'."

"Well... he _is_."

"No I'm not."

Almost gleeful that 'doing an Anko' had actually brought them off that uncomfortable topic ((maybe Anko's _not_ an idiot after all!)), Gaara continued. "Well, living with two freaks may have done something to your head, oh great Uchiha-sama, because you are not thinking clearly."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa..." Temari said, covering their mouths. "Stop talking like that... This is starting to sound like an Anko-Snape conversation-spar. You guys want to fight like a couple too?"

"They're a _couple_?" Gaara asked bluntly.

"She...she's _leagues_ out of his league!" Kankurou declared.

"And still with leagues to spare..." Sasuke said with a dazed expression on his face.

"Don't be stupid," Temari said. I meant they argue like an old married couple, not that they _are_ one, you fools."

"Actually," Shino said, "there are bets as to how thing will be between those two by the end of the year. The options are Anko dead-disabled-broken, Snape dead-disabled-broken, them as friends, or them as a couple."

"_How_ do you know this?"

"I have my ways. Kiba is pooling the money for the bets." They all paused to think of the possibilities.

"I'm not one for gambling," Sasuke said, "But I bet Anko's going to break him."

* * *

**_The Untold Story—Setting the Facts Straight  
_**_by: Trump Card_

_On October 10, 2005, the selection for the Triwizard Tournament was made through the Goblet of Fire. The champion for Beauxbatons was Ms. Fleur Delacour, Durmstrang's was the world-renowned Viktor Krum, Hogwarts was Cedric Diggory and Harry Potter, and an assortment of foreign exchange students, who were unfortunate enough to come in this exact same year... What seems to be a plot from Hogwarts may just be a bad prank or an attempted assassination. After all, Harry is the greatest danger attraction of all of Hogwarts. Extremely unpopular among the cunning Slytherins and a great celebrity amongst Gryffindors, Harry is, as you may be able to tell, not leading the perfect life. Where one side absolutely adores him, the other rejects.  
So now, as we speak, the Boy-Who-Lived is going through what may be one of the biggest pranks in the history of Hogwarts. Or the most dangerous assassination attempt. Now, Harry Potter, Savior of the Wizarding World, is to jump through hoops for the audience while he fights for his life. Luckily, he wasn't the only one.  
Oddly enough, a split second after Harry was chosen by the Goblet of Fire, five more students, visitors of Hogwarts from Japanese schools of magic, were also chosen for the tournament. Due to the fact that it was six Hogwarts students to one Beauxbatons student and one Durmstrang student, rules were slightly modified and adjustments were made so that the original champions would have a better chance at winning the tournament. Hyuuga Neji, who is currently involved with a pretty young woman by the name of Tenten, is partner to Fleur Delacour. Together, they will represent both the Beauxbatons school and the Hyuuga clan from the Hyuga Province, now currently known as the Miyazaki Prefecture. Viktor Krum's partner is Sabaku Gaara, son of the leader of a hidden village in Japan. While Viktor will represent Durmstrang, Gaara will represent the Hidden Village, Sunagakure (one accurate thing that reporter Rita Skeeter was able to correctly convey to the public). Cedric Diggory is Hogwarts first representative, and Uchiha Sasuke represents the Uchiha clan. Harry Potter will represent Hogwarts, and his assistant Uzumaki Naruto will represent Awajishima. The one odd student, Sabaku Kankurou, Gaara's elder brother, was the unlucky student who will jump through hoops alone in this tournament._

_The odds are slightly stacked against Durmstrang and Beauxbatons, but, hopefully, with this new arrangement, they will not be at so much of a disadvantage. To those who keep their eyes on the pocket money, let it be known that should one champion win, the champion will win the complete prize. There will be no need to split the money, as the Japanese students are receiving a prize of their own, in a certain sense. _

_See **page** **A4** for the list of inaccurate information given to you by Rita Skeeter and **A5** for a brief yet more accurate version of all the nine champions childhood and family._

"This is brilliant!" Harry said excitedly to Naruto. "How'd you...what did you do?"

"We pulled a few strings and got a reporter to pull a few _more_ strings and stick this on the front page of Witch Weekly," Naruto said smugly. "Normally, this magazine only has things like recipes and Top Ten Hottest Witches and Wizards and stuff, but we paid a little extra to get this on the front page. The Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly have a bit of a rivalry going on, so it wasn't too impossible."

"'Trump Card' is an anonymous freelance writer. The point of this article—with the subtle cracks at her work—is to sort of draw her away from you guys," Shino said. "He's anonymous, so it'll take a while for her to find him. But I know what she's like. She's a total bitch. You mouth off to her once, and she'll chase you to the ends of the earth."

Harry jumped. He hadn't seen the taller student come up behind him, and he certainly didn't expect to hear him _talk_.

"Nervous, Shino?" Naruto asked him. The few times that Shino talked more than a few brief sentences, it was because he was wary and just trying to think out loud. Perhaps Shino now understood the position he was in and was dreading Rita Skeeter's retribution to his suggestive article, which indicated that Rita Skeeter, as well as every single article she wrote, was completely faked. Of course, she'd have to find him first.

"_Never_." He turned around and left.

"What's up with that?" Harry said. "He was _talking_."

"I guess some of us are more social when something's brewing," Naruto said.

"What do you mean by that?"

He shrugged. "If we're unlucky enough, you'll find out yourself someday in the newspapers... Until then, I'm not saying a single word," Naruto said. Harry sighed.

* * *

Over the next few days, Harry's training was more bearable. Naruto, Hinata, and Harry were heading back into the Forbidden Forest again. Their training schedule was completely off, so it was just decided that all shinobi would attend and they'd just play by ear, which Harry rather enjoyed, since most of the time, they were always arguing amongst each other about their own private work and who would make Harry do what. It was Friday and they were training after dark again. 

'One of these days, they were going to get caught after curfew,' Harry thought to himself. 'Then again...' he added, glancing at them and noting that even when they walked on dry dirt and leaves, there was still no sound, or even footprints. 'Maybe not.'

Naruto, who was reading mail brought in by his _fox _of all things, grinned when he read a message he received from some friend of his.

"You-Know-Who said that he got You-Don't-Know-Who into your He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's manor," he said to Gaara excitedly.

"...What?"

Naruto looked at Harry warily and wrote it down on his communication parchment. Gaara, looking annoyed, pulled it out of his pocket and read it silently.

_GUN: Kuro got Mad into Mal Manor!_

Gaara glanced at Naruto. "You could have just whispered it to me..." But he wrote down another response anyway. Naruto glanced down at his own and watched letters scrawl across the page.

_Mr. Sandman: I got one in there a _long time_ ago...  
GUN: One what?  
Mr. Sandman: You know what I mean._

Naruto paused.

_GUN: Oooooh! ...Damn, you're fast. _

* * *

**(Quick scene-change)**

"Looooouu!"

"_What_?" Lucius Malfoy stared at the girl in horror of what she had just called him. "No! Why?"

"If I call you Lou, I could be, like, 'I'm going to the loo!' And I'll actually be talking about you. I give all my friends nicknames. Like Kuro-kun! And like Boruderomoretu!"

"...What?"

"Voldemort!" Lucius winced at her blatant use of the Dark Lord's name. "So, anyway,can I call you Luke?"

"No."

"Luci."

"No!"

"Lulu?"

"_NO_! No nicknames!"

"Lulululululululu!"

"Stop that and go away!"

"No."

"Good Merlin... I hate you," Lucius Malfoy rubbed his eyes. The girl grinned in his direction.

"Me or Merlin?"

"Both of you..." he muttered. "Zane!"

A young man about Madoka's age came running out into the hallway. "Yes sir?" he asked in unhealthily energetic tone.

"Take this girl... get her away from me!"

"How could you say that right in front of me?" Madoka sniffed melodramatically. "It hurts soooo much, Lulu!"

"JUST LEAVE ME BE, YOU STUPID LITTLE GIRL!"

Zane, the terror of house elves, the master of the kitchen, and Sunagakure's youngest and most talented of the Sand's Ryourinins, laughed and grabbed Madoka's arm and pulled her away. 'Another shinobi...' he thought with a smirk.

* * *

**(And back in the Forbidden Forest)**

"By the way, no training tomorrow," Neji said to Harry and Sasuke.

"What? Why not?" Sasuke demanded.

Tenten grinned. "Well if you two want to train here alone, then go ahead," she said. "Neji and I are going to Hogsmeade for the day."

"In other words," Naruto said, "Madam Puddifoot's is getting a new customer."

"What's that?" Harry asked

"A place..." Naruto said vaguely.

"And I'm wondering how you know about that place," Neji said in a cold voice that dropped the temperature in the forest a few degrees. "You wouldn't have happened to take a cousin of mine there...?"

Naruto laughed nervously, unsure of why he was getting the Byakugan Deathglare from a friend. "Well, no, I don't think she likes me like that..." _But why do I get the feeling he wants to kill me anyway...?_

Naruto backed away from Neji into the relatively safer atmosphere with Hinata. "Hey, Hinata, is it me or does Neji have a murderous intent directed toward me?"

Sasuke and Sakura heard this and remembered the conversation in the infirmary days ago. They hid their grins as Naruto continued to talk with Hinata with no particular subject in general.

"...And I'm betting she's reading this and feeling annoyed. Like she's just been called out. And now I think Trump Card is probably freaking out," Naruto said cheerfully.

"I am not freaking out," Shino replied stiffly.

"Gee, I never said it was you," the blond said. "I was talking about _Trump Card_. That's a stupid name by the way. Who calls himself 'Trump Card'?"

"Good question. Who calls himself Gun?"

"Hey, it's a good name! It stands for the Great Uzumaki Naruto!"

"What are you talking about again?" Harry asked.

"I dunno," Naruto lied. "So what's it today? Ta—martial arts? Weaponry? Anything in between?"

"_Anything_," Temari said teasingly. "From what I hear, he sucks so bad that anything'll do."

"You guys are just cruel..."

"Shuriken-throwing," Tenten said. "Since he can't do any _real _Japanese magic, we'll stick with things _normal people_ can do."

"You showed me that already," Harry said.

"Don't mix up kunai and shuriken. They are completely different things. While kunai are knives that can be thrown, shuriken are stars."

"Well, I know that, but how different can it be?"

"Good god," Neji said. "You've just made the biggest mistake of your life."

And then Tenten went into her full weapon-obsession mode. "How different? HOW DIFFERENT? Kunai are often meant to kill or seriously damage the opponent. Ordinary _shuriken, _however, are used as... as nuisance weapons! They're supposed to distract pursuers. Unless you're a _really_ lousy shin...— unless you're really lousy at throwing them, the ordinary shuriken will rarely kill anyone. The point of using a shuriken is to... well, if it hits an arm or leg, it'll prevent the attacker from attacking properly. You need constant practice to make the shuriken throwing instinctive." Tenten pulled out a box and opened it for Harry to see. "_These _are _shuriken_."

"Oh! Throwing stars," Harry said. "I've seen those on TV and stuff before."

"Teevee?"

"It's a muggle thing."

"Oh."

"So what, are you guys ninjas or something?" Harry asked them jokingly. A few of them nervously looked away and Tenten coughed.

"Are you kidding? Ninjas? Of course not!" she said hastily. "Time to practice! No talking allowed. If you practice enough, you'll get better. I'll give you a galleon if you manage to hit one at thirty feet by the end of the year!"

"Thirty feet? Are you crazy?" Harry said.

"No, what makes you think that?"

"How could you possibly hit a galleon at thirty feet?" he asked her. "I mean, galleons aren't exactly small, but no way!"

"Well I think all of us could do it," Tenten said. She looked at the others. "Can anyone _not_ do it?"

Naruto was the only one who responded. "Well, I haven't used a small one in a while, but I'm pretty sure I could do it if I started using them again," he said.

"No problem, your shuriken are nice and big and pretty," she said cheerfully, since she and Naruto were one of the few who used throwing weapons of that size. She turned back to Harry. "Okay, brief overview. There are a _lot_ of ways to throw these things. One of them is trying to hide the stay in your hand so it's hidden from the opponent's view. You'll need a lot of practice, since you might end up poking your palm and going 'ouch!' loudly in front of the opponent and looking like Naruto when I was first teaching him. My second method is trying to throw more than one star at a time. The correct way to do this is to throw them in a spread-out pattern, since I doubt you'll be throwing them one under the other anytime soon. If you're dealing with amateurs, then this is a good technique, because, well, when you see a barricade of these tiny little missiles getting launched at you, you'll probably feel a bit threatened too. But for a beginner, this method rarely stabs someone. The best you can hope for is that the star hits your opponent on the head. Since it's made of metal, you might even get an appreciative groan. The third basic throw is to grip one point between the thumb and the forefinger and throw it sideways, with a quick springing motion. Like a Frisbee. But if it was a Frisbee, it'll definitely go far in an unpredictable motion. Except the shuriken is _not_ a Frisbee. When you bend your arm to throw the star, try not to poke yourself in the chest. You'll look stupid."

Harry sweatdropped. He had been warned before, but he didn't know her weapons obsession went as far as long detailed lectures with the pretty little stick figures she drew in the dirt...

"It's important that you learn to judge distance accurately. Practice a lot so you know how far you can go before it ends up falling at someone's feet. Then you'll really look like an idiot. As for your stance... no one really stands the same way when throwing, but in general, you want to be able to throw it like throwing any other object at a target. Face the target in your natural throwing position with the left foot slightly in front of the right. Well, if you're right-handed, anyway. If you're left handed, you want your right foot in front. Keep the balance even, you know?

"Ah, and a warning to the wise: don't throw shuriken when you're jumping around," she reminded him. "It's not as easy as it seems. If you really want to do that, try it on a _target_ first. Meaning don't try it on real people. We'll make your target later. For now, hit the softer pine trees so it won't be a hassle to dig them out." Tenten walked up to a tree and cut a perfect circle, about two feet in diameter.

"Try hitting that," she said. She and the others backed up behind him.

"Aren't you going to stay here with me?" he asked them.

"Oh, we're staying alright," Sasuke said. "Wouldn't miss this for the world..."

As Harry soon realized, as he practiced the Frisbee throw, they didn't need to choose a soft tree to practice on. Because it seemed that unless he actually went up to the target and dug the shuriken into it by hand, he couldn't even make a mark on the tree. Immediately, Tenten rounded on Neji and Sasuke.

"That's why I wanted him to strengthen his arms! For weapons! How can he use a weapon if his arms aren't strong enough to hit a distant target? All the strength is in his legs!"

"Well I wasn't training him to be a weapon-user, I was training him for taijutsu!" Sasuke said.

"He needs to learn his weapons!"

"Taijutsu!"

"Weaponry!"

"Taijutsu!"

"Weaponry! Neji! You tell him weapons are better!"

"Well, both are pretty good, actually. _I_ can use both..."

"Oh, so you're saying that just because I'm the only one who hasn't all 'mastered' taijutsu—"

"I didn't say anything like that!"

"Don't yell at me, Neji!"

"Don't accuse me of stupid things, Tenten!"

"I SWEAR IF YOU CALL ME STUPID ONE MORE TIME...!"

"I didn't, I didn't...!"

"Uh, you better just continue practicing your throwing," Naruto muttered as everyone leapt forward to pry Neji's girlfriend off of him as the Hyuga ran back towards the castle for cover.

"I think I'll come here and practice tomorrow morning too," Harry muttered, throwing more shuriken at the tree as Tenten and Neji were soon gone. Oh, that one left a scratch! Cool!

"And I'll watch," Sasuke said. Harry felt instantly annoyed, but something made him bite back a retort. Maybe it was the feeling that, despite all the snide remarks, Sasuke didn't mean anything by it. Or maybe it was the fact that Sasuke could kill him in less than the blink of an eye.

This day's training went well, according to Naruto, although no one really cared, therefore they didn't really watch him. Not that Harry minded. It made him feel small to think that they (allegedly) have been doing this for years, which didn't really add up well because that would have made them, like, ten when they started their training. And starting so young would be insane, considering the pressure might make a kid go crazy. On the other hand, maybe that's why these Japanese students were like that.

It was some time around midnight when everyone started getting tired. With the exception of Gaara, of course. Harry was already exhausted at ten, but it didn't really matter anyway. Some of them had already left earlier, but Naruto and a few others remained.

Naruto sighed, looking rather bored. He had been sitting as if he were meditating for the last two or three hours, muttering to himself and making Harry wonder just what the blond was thinking. Sasuke and Gaara, who also stayed behind, looked almost curious too, but didn't say anything.

"Naruto, are you sleeping or sitting there and pretending to sleep?" Sasuke asked. "Because this place isn't the best spot for a nap."

Naruto looked up at them. "Oh, I was just thinking," he said.

"That's a surprise," Sasuke said. "That was the last thing I would have expected you to say."

"Shut up, bastard."

"Dead-last."

"Can't call me that anymore," Naruto said in a singsong voice. "But I can still call you a bastard."

"What were you thinking?" Gaara asked.

"Ah, well, just...things. Techniques, sorta, I guess," he said, scratching his head.

"Techniques as in strategy or techniques as in actual techniques?" Sasuke wondered.

"The second," Naruto said. "Or both, in a way. How I could try something new and do something with it..."

"That's not vague at all," the Uchiha muttered.

Naruto grinned. "If you think I was going to tell you what I'm planning, then you've got another thing coming, bastard."

"Dead-last."

"Am not."

"Hey, you'll always be dead-last to me," he sneered.

"How Slytherin of you. Unable to accept the fact that Gryffindor _owns_ you."

"You don't own me..."

"It's a 'muggle' expression," Naruto said. "It means—what the hell was that?"

Gaara, Sasuke, Naruto, and Harry turned around.

"Hey, you were listening to us talk..." Naruto said.

"What was _what_, Naruto...?" Gaara said impatiently.

"I saw a bright ligh—there it goes again! ...Is that a fire?"

"Either we put it out, save the forest, and get asked awkward questions as to why we four were in here in the first place or we act as if we see nothing and run the hell away from the scene of the crime," Sasuke said.

"It's people," Harry said, seeing what looked like a red stunner beyond the trees.

Gaara looked down at the shuriken. "We have weapons out. Those could get us expelled, right?"

They all looked at each other. "Let's leave," Naruto said, and they picked up their belongings and ran the hell away from the scene of the crime.

* * *

Charlie Weasley was looking forward to seeing his brother. It was a rare occasion that he had an excuse to come home, and now he had a perfectly valid excuse to come to Hogwarts. The Triwizard Tournament. Five wizards and from each dragon preserve all around the world were meeting here in the Forbidden forest to gather and show off their dragons, seeing whose was most impressive and would 'qualify' for the tournament. 

It was beautiful...

All ten species of dragons. In one spot. Standing by his own Hungarian Horntail and Romanian Longhorn, he briefly glanced at the 'competition'. Supposedly, a professor from Hogwarts was to meet them and judge whether they were fit for whatever task was ahead. The huge Ukrainian Ironbelly was easiest to spot for its size, being the largest of all ten dragons of the world. This one was a bit small for its species, but it was definitely much larger than all of the other dragons the wizards brought. In the darkness, he may have spotted a Hebridian Black. There were the bronze horns of a Norwegian Ridgeback and that was all he saw before he was suddenly forced to stop looking.

Not because he was scared of the dragons. They were supposed to be spelled to sleep for several days. Charlie vaguely wondered who supplied the sleeping potions and how much gold they probably owed him. In any case, there was one slight problem in this situation.

The dragons were no longer asleep. There was a quiet '_Ennervate_', and the dragons were as furious as ever, though it was reasonable, as they were probably confused as to how they got from their home to the middle of the forest.

But how had they overcome the sleeping spells _and_ the series of protective runes? It wasn't possible to just get back up after a dose like that unless the witch or wizard who woke up the dragons and broke the runes was extremely powerful.

Not that Charlie really had time to ponder this, being attacked by a pack of furiously confused dragons.

* * *

**My Thinking Corner **

Also, a few people have been reviewing for my other fic, Sand-style: the bachelor. Well, I'm not continuing that until maybe summer starts because I can't remember what the point of writing that was, I lack a real direction to take that fic (aside from GaaSaku), and I'm a bit busy with this one.  
I really shouldn't be updating right now... I have a few projects that I need to finish... And I really should get working on them. And I'm sure that a whole bunch of you are like, "FINALLY, SOME ACTION!" And I'm like, "Yeah...um...action..." It's sooo hard to write that stuff T-T. The entire nundu part was cut out for two reasons 1) I couldn't write it well enough and 2) the fic without it is 35 pages. With it, it had 41. Which was too long. Which made me tired just be reading it over... Oh, and a third reason: it was too long and too short. I mean, half of the stuff was talking, and the other half was a five second fight. Not too interesting. Or vital to the plot. I'll rewrite it in the summer.  
The whole point of the past few chapters was to sort of 'bring some interaction' between the shinobi. Sasuke is a bit out of character, but, if you hadn't noticed, sometimes he's actually in character (I think, considering he's had that 2 ½ year absence and is probably a bit more sadistic than I've written him...) but the point is that he's trying to 'force himself to change' and get everyone to trust him. I'm sure that he has no idea what I'm planning for them all (mehehehehe...) but by 'winning their trust', it's...well, it's important to later events. Events that don't take place in this fic.  
So I've got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that I had a 79 on my report card, therefore I am grounded, leading to the removal of Maplestory and most games on my computer, which will results in a crazy me and a game-deprived psycho talking in my head. The good news? I saved my money on car insurance by switching to Geico. Yeah, yeah, corny joke. Bleh. Actually, the good news is that I have made notes for the next several chapters to the end of the fiction. It'll be about 30 chapters minimum (no fillers included)... not including an epilogue and a sneak preview of a few other things. The important things in this fic are... well, not too subtle.  
Sometimes, I'm writing in my notebook, and I am going, 'WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING, WRITING AN HP-ANYTHING CROSSOVER?'

Ah, and the 'Why Bill and not Charlie?' issue... well, as you can see here, Charlie was busy collecting his best and prettiest dragons for the first task. And Bill is just a normal curse breaker. Has he gotten a desk job at the bank yet? I don't know. Anyway, I chose Bill because, despite my lack of knowledge of Bill's personality, I understand Charlie even less. Also, I was thinking that Bill probably had better communication skills when it came to other languages, since he works at the only wizard bank in the world. You know, worldwide wizards all trying to get money from one bank...? Lots of languages that Bill would have to understand, you know?

* * *

**setjerro**: (warning: a clue) Yeah, I only wrote it that way because it was spelled wrong on the name thingie... Yeah, sorry. And actually (once I get a chance), maybe I'll get Hermione. But only maybe. Because it worries me that I'd be jumping the person in Harry Potter who is most like me (minus the frizzy hair and the super-smartness...). Noooo! My lines! (deep breath) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! You're cruel... T-T. And no, KYUBI is NOT teaching fox summonings...  
to : (especially important for those who are wondering about this) Yes, it _is_ illegal to teach outsiders their village techniques. Luckily for these shinobi, they already know that. Which is why they are only teaching Harry the basic skills. Not taijutsu techniques, but correct ways to punch, kick, fall, lock legs and make others fall, and run away fast. A bit of chakra control. Weapons. Other stuff. And I suppose it was the Neji and Sasuke try to teach Harry to summon part that brought this up, huh? Well the thing is that they aren't teaching him _their_ village's techniques. They're teaching how to summon whatever _Harry_ has. It's _Harry's_ 'technique', I suppose. And, also, they have the kazekage of the sand with them. I doubt he'd order the ANBU to hunt himself down. As to why the Makotos were willing to give Harry something that could lead to their own death, well... it was a bit of their own 'experiment'. Details will be provided later. And one of their mottos is: 'Better him than us'. You'll understand in time... Despite your anonymity, thank you anyway for bringing this up. I forgot to make note of it in the previous chapter.  
**anonomous**: ...(scared shitless) But hey, at least my toes are back...  
**Anonomys**: One (or two) more chapter(s)! Just wait a little longer! And I apologize for the lack of Ron-bashing despite my written promises. I'm planning on dedicating a chapter to Naruto's little 'adventures', making pranks and causing chaos. But not yet.  
**Dragonblack**: (read for my opinion on Naruto) Naruto is like... Shigure from Fruits Basket. Making stupid jokes half the time, and in private, acting completely serious (though not as manipulative). Like... Sanada Yukimura from Samurai Deeper Kyo. Or um...um... Recca from Flame of Recca? You know, I feel that Naruto just acts stupid just for the sake of acting stupid. Either that, or he really is stupid, but very tricky when he needs to be.  
**brian**: ...did you just rendan me? (sorry, I was confused reading this)  
**Amandana**: Gaara's mail is just booby-trapped (yeah... JUST booby-trapped, not a big deal at all...). Just a little explosion. Nothing big.  
**me me me GO ME!-!-!-!-!**: Of course! I'd never stray from GaaSaku! (well, probably never...) 


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24: Um...Shit?  
((As you can see, I am running out of names for this chapter))

"Get up, Potter..." Sasuke said, kicking the frame of the bed and causing it to jerk up suddenly for a moment. Shocked, Harry fell out and landed on the floor, unconscious. Ron sat up groggily and stared at Sasuke, all sign of sleep gone in a split-second.

"Bloody hell, how did you get in here?" he asked.

"You don't want to know," Sasuke said, nudging Harry's body on the ground with his foot.

Ron stared at him for a moment. "You're right. I don't," he said grumpily after glancing at Sasuke and Harry for a moment, and the wizard went back to sleep.

"Fucking _ennervate_, Potter," Sasuke said, pulling his ivory wand out. Harry jerked away, feeling as if he had been shocked and was now full of waaaay too much energy, as if he had drunk several cups of coffee and a box of sugar quills.

"How'd you get in here?" Harry asked him. He shook his head quickly. "Nevermind, I don't want to know," he said hastily.

"Suit yourself," Sasuke said.

"What are you doing here anyway?"

"You're late for the training."

"What? But it's Saturday!"

"Does it seem that I am not aware of that?"

"Yes! What time is it?"

"Do I look like a clock?"

"...Yes?" Harry said hopefully. He heard a snort from the bed next to him.

"It's four-thirty," Sasuke said, ignoring Ron's suppressed laughter. "Now get up."

"But I don't want to train today!"

"I don't care about what you want," he said. "When I do, I'll tell you."

Harry was about to concede and was slowly getting up when Sasuke glared at him. It wasn't the usual glare that said 'shut-up-and-obey-me'. It was one that said—was Harry hallucinating?—'argue-with-me-some-more'. And so he did. "You can't make me! I'm tired and you do this to me everyday."

"So? I'm making up for all those years of exercise you missed as a child. Wizards today are getting _fat_. You do nothing but fly on silly brooms, Apparate here and there, and cast spells to do your chores. We actually do some hands-on work, now get up, you lazy tard."

"I refuse."

"I'll kill you." Sasuke heard Ron move a little.

"Fair enough," Harry said getting up off the ground.

"What was that about?" he asked Sasuke later when they were heading for the Forbidden Forest. It no longer gave Harry startling chills when he entered. Things were always safe then the shinobi were around.

"Ron was awake."

"So what?" Harry asked suddenly, feeling a bit annoyed.

"If he's jealous that you're hanging around with us a lot, then you should let him know that you aren't hanging with us willingly. But since you are too stubborn to do so, it's best if you let him accidentally overhear us talking like that. Arguing about how we always make you hang out with us. Not really liking us, but you have to anyway." Sasuke stopped dead in his tracks. Harry bumped into him and looked over his shoulder, his eyes widening.

The entire training spot was wrecked. The trees were bent and broken, there were gashes in the floor. Things were swept about and Harry smelled smoke. Sasuke frowned. "Harry..."

"Yeah."

"This is just a reminder of what we told you before, but if you _ever _tell _anyone _about the kind of magic that we do, then none of us will hesitate to kill you," he said in a cold voice.

"Um...okay," Harry said, shifting under the Uchiha's heart-stopping gaze. Perhaps it was the darkness, but Sasuke's eyes were red. He made a strange sign with his hands, and there was a 'poof'. Harry coughed, waving away a cloud of white smoke away from him. And then he stared in horror...

At two Sasuke Uchiha look-alikes.

Harry backed away. As if only one wasn't enough, and now there were two of him. Sasukes rolled their eyes.

"Quit looking at me like I'm a freak. _You _people ride _brooms_."

"What is this?" Harry asked, "Some kind of Time Turner?"

"What's a time turner?"

"Nevermind," Harry said. "But what is this?"

"It's a technique called the _Kage Bunshin no Jutsu_," he explained. "A shadow copy technique. More advanced than the Bunshin no Jutsu. It's a forbidden technique."

"Is that why you don't want me to tell anyone? Because it's forbidden?"

"No. Naruto knows it too. But he's able to make hundreds at one go. No, I told you not to tell anyone because if you did, then we'd have to kill you. We aren't allowed to teach outsiders techniques of our own village."

"Then why'd you want me to summon something?" he asked Sasuke angrily.

"The Makotos gave you the scroll. That's the Sand's business. Anyway, they do special favors for Gaara, I think, so they're pretty much safe. And I have a funny feeling... that summoning thing they gave you... isn't exactly of their village... let alone legal." Harry sweatdropped.

"Oh. Okay..."

"We're wasting enough time here," Sasuke said. "Stick with me."

"Which one of you?"

"I'm the original," the one in front of him said. "Come on, we're looking for whatever did this."

"Why?"

"Because I told you to," he said. Harry sighed and jogged to keep up as the other two Sasukes ran in other directions.

"So what are we looking for exactly?" Harry asked.

"I don't know."

"_You don't know_?"

"I hear an echo..." he said. Sasuke sighed. "There may be more than one. The slashes on the ground were different widths. Unless you know a creature with five different sizes of legs, I'm sure that there are quite a few of these things running around. The smallest may be about fifteen to twenty feet. The largest... maybe sixty to eighty...Some fire-breathing beast. Maybe a skrewt got lose..."

"Bloody hell, maybe it's a _drag—_"

"Shut. Up."

"Why?"

"I said shut up!" Sasuke said, covering his mouth. "Do you smell that? For god's sake, neither of us have Kiba's nose, but, obviously, you must be sick not to smell that smoke..."

He sniffed the air and realized that it was also a bit hazy... No, it wasn't hazy before. Harry hadn't missed that. The air was starting to grow thicker and grayer.

"Damn," he muttered. He made another hand sign. "_Kai_. Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" He made three more copies.

"I thought you said you couldn't make a lot," Harry said.

"I dispelled the other two, now _shut up_," Sasuke said, looking increasingly agitated. "And get out your wand, you idiot. And Silence your feet!"

"Silence it? I can't! I can't use any charms!"

"_Silencio_!" Sasuke hissed, pointing his wand at Harry, who was suddenly unable to speak. He stepped forward and a twig snapped underneath his foot. He winced, expecting Sasuke to reprimand him, but was surprised when it made no sound at all. He was completely Silenced from head to toe. Wait... how was he supposed to cast spells?-!

NOW WHO'S THE IDIOT? Harry shouted silently at the Sasukes, none of which were showing any sign of attention to Harry's distress. He pulled on Sasuke's sleeve. He ignored Harry. He tapped on Sasuke's shoulder. He continued to ignore Harry. Finally, Harry whacked him with the back of his hand (hurting it in the process), and he was shocked to find that the Sasuke disappeared in a puff of smoke. Finally, the original whirled around immediately with an angry look in his eye.

"You idiot! I'm ignoring you for a reason! _Petrificus totalis_! _Mobilicorpus_!" Harry couldn't move and was thrown against a tree. "Now stay there and _don't move at all_, you bloody idiot!" ((aw, I think Sasuke likes him!)) Sasuke ran forward leaving Harry behind, who felt a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as it seemed that Sasuke was going to leave him there. But he didn't get very far, as a copper flash of scales hit him from the side. Harry's eyes widened as a dragon, about fifteen feet in length, tackled Sasuke to the ground and tore at him with its possibly poisonous teeth...

...Only to bite into a chunk of broken wood. Sasuke blew small bits and pieces of fire from hit mouth, much to Harry's astonishment. The dragon blew its own fire, a smaller one that actually put Sasuke's out. The next thing Harry knew, the dragon was hissing in annoyance as small shuriken embedded itself in its thick scales. Sasuke took out what looked like a large roll of parchment and rolled it open in midair, and four large shuriken appeared. Sasuke threw all four separately before they even hit the ground.

All four missed—to Harry's dismay—but strangely enough, as they shot past the dragon's head, they bounced backward, as if pulled by an invisible string and struck the dragon from it's back. Sasuke smirked in pride at the injured creature on the ground until he saw the look of horror in Harry's eyes as Harry saw something terrifying behind the Uchiha.

He heard his shadow doppelgangers shout. "_Kuchiyose: Rashoman_!" The ground rumbled as a huge gate began to appear between his doppelgangers. Doppelgangers were not meant to use so much chakra and disappeared. Sasuke quickly peered behind the gate, jumping on top of it as it rose out of the ground. It was easily ten times larger and heavier than the previous dragon, and it was blowing dark red flames right at him.

"_Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu_!" (1) Raging orange and red flames spewed from Sasuke's own mouth to combat with the dragon's, and they were almost evenly met. Harry couldn't see much past the huge purple gate, but he was pretty sure he saw fire from Sasuke's mouth. What was he, a dragon? He saw darker red flames meet Sasuke and he fell backward onto the gate, falling heavily on his feet. Even he could feel the heat leaking from the huge wall between Sasuke and the other huge dragon. The other dragon behind Sasuke, the smaller copper one, got up immediately and slashed at Sasuke, who blocked it with his arm and glared at it with dark red eyes. The dragon froze under the pressure of Sasuke's murderous killing intent.

And Naruto came out of nowhere, kicking the dragon aside. "Never fear, Uzumaki Naruto is here!" he announced as he and his tiny fox appeared on the scene. "Hey, Sasuke-bastard, Hinata saw you getting attacked here. Where's Harry? Your arm looks infected. It shouldn't be green like that... I saw what happened to the training spot. Did this tiny thing do all that? Because if it did, then—"

"Stop talking! We are under attack by huge, fire-breathing lizards, you idiot!"

"But I just KO'd it!"

"The _small _one! You beat the _small_ one! You talk too much!"

The summoned gate of ' Kyoto' slowly began to crumble and return to the ground, barely having had enough chakra to summon it in the first place.

"Why the hell did you bring that stupid fox? And why's it so _small_? I mean, that's _half_ the size it was before! And—"

"And now who's talking too much?" Naruto asked. If Harry wasn't already on the ground, he would have fallen over. There was a great big bloody beast coming right at them, and they're busy _chatting_!

Flames erupted from the huge dragon's mouth, enveloping the two. Harry didn't know what to feel, except for relief when he saw Naruto covering them both in some kind of opaque orange energy. Inside, Sasuke was shouting at Naruto something about how he was stupid using some untested technique on them at last moment.

"Heh, it worked out in the end anyway," Naruto said, shrugging as the orange shield dissipated. "And more help is on the wa—ah, here they are now..."

A small group of people burst through the trees just as soon as the fire dissipated. It was Sakura, Kiba, Hinata, and Shino. With an identical small fox. Eh? The two twin foxes jumped at each other and combined to make a slightly larger one, now exactly like Naruto's fox.

"Wow, just transfigure the dragon to a cat, and it'll be just like old days," Naruto said.

"Where's the enem...? Dude, that lizard is _huge_..." Kiba said, staring at the bigger dragon.

"...What is that?" Shino wondered out loud.

"Great..." Sasuke said. "It's only you guys..."

"Yeah, it's _only _us!" Kiba growled, looking somewhat offended.

"Seriously, what can a mutt and his dog, a bug guy who specializes only mostly in one-on-one combat and spying, a Hyuuga who only heals and uses defense strategies with mediocre Juken skills that work best on humanoid creatures with chakra, and Sakura who heals. And fights pretty good..." he added hastily at Sakura's glare. If only she were still head over heels for him... then he'd be at less of a risk of getting hit by that abnormal strength she had displayed at the Quidditch World Cup. And, according to Naruto, she hadn't been even using most of her firepower!

"So, uh... that thing is coming right at us..." Naruto said, backing away.

"You noticed?" Shino asked. Pulling down his collar, he bit his thumb and hit the ground, the way Sasuke and Neji had been trying to show Harry over and over a while back. For a moment, nothing happened, but there was a 'bamf' and Shino appeared on the biggest bug Harry had ever seen. It was a giant beetle with this shells covering a shiny set of see-through wings, almost matching the dragon in height, if you included it's large horn. That...that was so gross.

The large beetle tackled at the dragon head on and, though it was smaller, the dragon and the beetle's strengths were matched. The other five Japanese wizards charged the dragon. And Akamaru. Harry must have blinked because, all of a sudden, Kiba and his dog were done and, in his place, was a large two-headed dog that would have cowed even Fluffy, who had three heads. Spinning, they knocked the dragon to its side, a temporary relief for Shino and his beetle. Sasuke, who had been fast enough already, was almost less than a blur, holding some sort of blue lightning that sounded like a thousand birds were screaming and chirping all at the same time. Naruto created dozens of doppelgangers (Harry mentally compared this to the two or three that Sasuke was able to create). Each of them jumped on the fallen dragon and blew up on contact.

"Sasuke!" Sakura shouted as the dark haired Slytherin fell. She and Hinata crouched next to him. The flames from the dragon nearly got to them, but Hinata used a strange spinning technique that seemed to blow it away as Sakura, with a glowing green hand, pulled something out of his body.

"I am getting so good at this..." Harry heard Sakura murmer. She yelped for no apparent reason, but took out a sheet of parchment.

"Hinata! We need to go back to Dumbledore and report this. And we can't kill these things...! I think...wait, _these _are dragons?-!"

"What?" Kiba said. "No they aren't! These things spit fire at you and have huge wings and try to kill us! Those aren't dragons!"

(start stutter) "European dragons," (end stutter) Hinata said. (start stutter) "The dragons that we have are different from the European dragons that they have here." (end stutter)

The beetle that Shino summoned had disappeared. So _that _was a summon! ...It didn't look _that _hard. Gah! Were they leaving without him?-! Kiba glanced over at Harry, who was laying on the ground. "What happened to you?" he asked. Harry glared at him.

"_Finite incantatem_," Sasuke said.

Harry scrambled to his feet and glared at him. Naruto laughed at the expression on Harry's face as Sasuke completely ignored him.

"Wow," Naruto said while they quickly headed back to the castle. "He must really not hate you a lot..."

"Gee, great," Harry muttered. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, he hasn't exactly tried to kill you yet, but he's getting there."

"...Okay."

"Haha, it's an Uchiha-friend thing... You won't get it until he tries to kill you."

Naruto and the others left Harry to left him actually eat some breakfast as they started running for Dumbledore's office.

* * *

"Okay, Dumbledore, what were those things?-!" Sasuke said angrily to the old man the first moment they entered his office. 

"The dragon?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "If you can even _call _that thing a dragon... Yes, that '_dragon_'."

"That, Mr. Uchiha, is your next task," he said, his eyes twinkling.

"_What _task?" he demanded.

"Wait," Naruto said, "you mean the _Tournament _tasks?"

"It doesn't seem too hard..." Kiba commented.

"Says the guy who _didn't_ get bit by the poisonous one," Sasuke muttered under his breath.

"Ah... that's not what I meant," Dumbledore said shiftily. "When I said tasks, I meant mission. Yes. Anyway, these dragons were brought here from all over the world for an inspection... In any case, there have been a few problems, as you can see."

"Such as setting them loose in the forest?" the Uchiha asked. "Yeah, I think I can see how that might be a bit of a problem..."

"The dragons were never meant to escape," Dumbledore said, lowering the strength of his 'twinkling', effectively showing the shinobi how serious the situation really was. "Last night, as Professor Moody was supposed to arrive to judge which dragon would be best suited for the tasks ahead, he arrived upon an empty camp..."

"Eh?"

"As in something happened to the dragons and the people, Naruto," Sasuke said impatiently.

"Well I think we _all _realize _that_. But what happened?" Naruto asked.

"We don't know," the headmaster sighed. "However, there is something I must ask of you..."

"What?" Naruto asked.

"Well, obviously, you were not prepared to do any 'dragon-fighting' today," Dumbledore said. "But tonight, I would like for some of you to go into the forest and find the missing people here. There are twelve wizards still missing."

"Before or after dinner? Because I don't want to be rescuing people on an empty stomach..."

"After, then," Shino said, apparently not amused by Kiba's carefree antics.

"Honestly," Sakura said. "There are people stuck somewhere in a godforsaken forest the size of the Land of Waves, and you're going off about _dinner_?"

"Well I am sure that the forest is not _too _dangerous. Most had already escaped the previous night and had reported the incident to me already. In fact... they mentioned that whoever attacked them wasn't an animal."

"I wasn't even thinking that it could be an animal..." Naruto said. "Heh. Oops."

"So...it's getting a bit colder," Sasuke said. "The sun is setting faster. And it'll be a bit dark after dinner. Around seven o' clock? I'd rather meet right after."

"It'll be dark by then," Naruto said.

"And it'll be darker afterwards," Sasuke said. "You want to go earlier when its lighter and miss dinner?"

"Searching in the dark it is, then," he said, rubbing his hands together. "Great..."

* * *

"Whoever's team finds the most people wins!" Kiba announced to everyone who was present. Sasuke, Neji, Naruto, Tenten, Hinata, and Kiba were all standing outside of the forest. 

"There are six of us and none of us are in teams," Neji said bluntly.

"Seven," Kiba corrected. "I've got Akamaru."

"Seven and a half if you count Vikki," Naruto added.

"Okay... seven and a half people," Kiba said.

"Two teams!" Tenten said. "And I'm on my Neji-kun's!"

"I've got Naruto and Hinata. There's no way in hell I'm letting the other team have _two Hyuugas_," Kiba said.

"Who died and made _you _leader?" Naruto demanded.

"You will if you argue with me," he growled.

"You can try, mutt..." Naruto said. "Well that's Kiba, Hinata, and me... and Akamaru too, I guess... Aw man, that means Sasuke's on _their _team!"

"Two top rookies and the strongest kunoichi in her year..." Neji said smugly. "I think you guys are screwed." Hah. He, Sasuke, and Tenten versus Kiba, Hinata and...and _Naruto_. Wait a minute...

"Damn you...!" Naruto cried out loudly. He, Kiba, Akamaru, and Hinata traded glances, and they immediately took off towards the forest, getting a headstart.

"Assholes, come back here!" Sasuke shouted as the other three chased after them.

"And come back here with my cousin, Naruto!"

As Naruto's group entered the forest, Kiba and Hinata paused to think. "I've got my sense of smell and Hinata has her Byakugan. Do you have any tracking technique?"

"Hehe, I've already thought of one," Naruto said. _Kage Bunshin no jutsu_! _Henge no jutsu_! Several Narutos handed Kiba and Hinata a kunai. "Don't throw me," he said. "I'll be running around everywhere. If I'm in deep shit, I'll let you know." Naruto grinned. "It's a part of my new technique...An experiment!"

"Right," Kiba said. The group split up, and Naruto was running with Vikki through the forest. ((Yay, that stupid fox is doing something!))

You copyfox, Vikki sneered at him.

"What ever are you talking about?" Naruto asked innocently.

My method!

"Feel flattered," he said. "Imitation is the truest form of flattery. Or something like that."

Humans... can't think up things themselves.

"Foxes... can't open doors on their own..."

You have thumbs! We do not!

"The point being...?"

Naruto took a deep breath and stopped to close his eyes. Aside from the kunai-Naruto's Kiba and Hinata were carrying (Naruto mentally noted how close his kage-bunshin-kunai was to Hinata's chest... (:insert my creepy pervert laughter here:)), he had seven other bunshins heading in different directions. Very few had seen anything of any importance, but one smelled a faint scent of smoke. He took a deep breath, holding his wand out.

"_Naruto Muto Naruto_!" He opened his eyes. "Did it work?"

No.

"Damn." Naruto sighed and closed his eyes once again, though this time trying something else. He reached out with his chakra and felt a 'tug' in all of his Kage Bunshins' direction. "Okay, that-a-way!" he said, pointing in the direction of the Kage Bunshin that had found something. He gathered the chakra in his feet and began to run in its direction.

* * *

"That bastard...!" Neji muttered under his breath as Sasuke and Tenten held him back from the forest by the arms. "Naruto and Hinata... alone in the forest!" 

"Well what about Kiba?" Sasuke said. "_He's_ there, right?"

"What, you think he'd make a good chaperone or something?" Tenten said sarcastically. "If Naruto and Hinata suddenly try to run off and elope, he'll just follow them and hope to see something good or something."

Neji went pale at this. And his left eye twitched. Bad sign...

"Not that they'd do that," she said weakly. "I mean, the moment Kiba gets excited, they'll probably snap out of it and Naruto would beat the hell out of him for being a pervert, right? And, you know, Kiba might be a dog, but he's just not like that, you know? I mean... yeah. And then Naruto would beat the hell out of him. Yeah..."

"Screw it, I'll murder them _both_, even if they _don't _do anything..." Neji muttered darkly.

"Say," Sasuke said thoughtfully. "You don't think that Hinata would... tell Tenten about _all _possible uses for the Byakugan, do you?"

Neji paused. Was that a threat, coming from the seemingly 'docile' Uchiha?

"What else can the Byakugan do?" Tenten asked Neji curiously. "It can see through things, it can see chakra, and it can help you 'psychoanalyze' peolple, and it could see three-hundred sixty degrees... You can do something that you haven't told me about?-!"

"No," Neji said. "It's just Sasuke being stupid... I'll save killing Naruto for later... Let's just focus on getting these 'dragons'. I don't see any."

"Well it _is _rather dark," Sasuke commented, regarding Neji's 'submission' to his reminder of Hinata's threat. "So they might be harder for you to see, even with your Byakugan. And, in any case, these dragons don't really look like dragons. They're more like huge, winged, fire-breathing lizards. Only fire. Rather ugly, too."

"_Only _fire?" Tenten said. "Why on earth do these Westerners call them dragons?"

"No idea," he said. "But we had better hurry up."

"Why? These dragons aren't going anywhere any time soon, with Hogwarts' wards up," Tenten said. Neji shook his head.

"The goal of this 'mission' is not to capture the dragons but to save the people who brought them here," he said. "Sasuke's right, we don't want to have any time to spare. Let's split up."

"Let's _not_," Sasuke said. "These Western dragons have thick skin. It'll be fastest to take them down three-on-one, rather than having us all take down one dragon at a time if we end up facing one. Neji, do you see any debris anywhere? The forest is magical and the trees tend to grow back spontaneously, but if a dragon passed by, there should at least a bit of wreckage around on the ground."

Neji glared at Sasuke. "I'm leader by seniority."

"Well actually, by seniority, I am," Tenten corrected. "Seniority rule never works, Neji-kun. You know that. Or else, _Lee _would be leader." Tenten and Neji thought about the chaos that would have ensued if Lee ever became a leader of anything at all.

Neji frowned again, but it wasn't from the thought of Lee telling him what to do.

"What is it?" Tenten asked, noticing this sudden change

"I saw something weird and shimmery," he said, activating his Byakugan. "There, I see it's chakra patterns. That way," he said, pointing to his left. They all ran towards Neji's direction and saw an iridescent, pearly-scaled dragon (2) feasting on some dead animal. Its multicolored eyes glittered maliciously, spotting them as they arrived on the scene.

"Well," Neji said, as the dragon began to spit small specks of flames. "That doesn't look so killer-like." They dove out of the way as it roared, spouting vivid red flames where the three shinobi had just been standing. "Then again... that was _before _it nearly toasted us..." he muttered.

"I told you it spat fire," Sasuke said, looking annoyed at the surprised expressions on the two older shinobi's faces. "I'm not that pathetic."

"Well, you mentioned fire-breathing, so I was _expecting _a handseal," Neji said scathingly, glaring at Sasuke who rolled his eyes.

"Excuses, excuses, but this shouldn't be so hard..." he said, noting that this dragon was much smaller and probably not so poisonous with the less than blinding colors of its scales. And also wondering why Neji expected something that didn't even have thumbs to make a handseal. "Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu (1)!"

The dragon stumbled back, surprised to face a huge flame larger its own ("Muahaha, take that stupid lizard!") when something forced it onto it's side. It looked to its left and saw Neji, with his palm facing towards it. A kunai flew at its other side and created a violent explosion.

"Good Merlin, is she alright?" a man cried out, running towards the dragon that laid on the ground. "Anti, Anti, speak to me!" he cried, tugging at the dragon's toe. It lifted his foot and squashed him.

Neji, Tenten, and Sasuke traded skeptical glances. Found one dragon-obsessed idiot...eleven more to go. Hoo boy...

Leading the way, Neji headed for the next debris-cluttered area when he paused.

"Do you see another dragon?" Tenten asked him.

"No... I see... three Naruto's, two carrying one person each, but all three running away from Kiba..."

"Why would they—?" Sasuke said, but he was cut off when Naruto, his doppelgangers, and his two rescued dragon keepers zoomed past him. He turned around as Naruto ran away screaming. He looked back at Kiba, who was in his Double Headed Wolf form with Akamaru...(3) and some other dog. No, something was strange. Kiba was supposed to have only two heads in this form. Why the hell was he running around with three?-!

"Um, ah... let's go," Tenten said, running after Naruto.

"What the hell did you do with Kiba?" Neji shouted at Naruto.

"No idea!" Naruto said, running faster. "I didn't do anything! I'm walking, I save two people, and all of a sudden, Kiba's trying to eat me!"

Sasuke saw two figures in the forest ahead of them. Neji had a confused look on his face, having spotted them before Sasuke had.

"Wait a minute..." Neji said.

"What the—!" Naruto said. He jump kicked Kiba, who was walking with Hinata. "Kiba, why the hell are you trying to kill me for?-!"

"..." Everyone stared at Naruto, sweatdropping.

(start stutter) "N-Naruto..." Hinata said. "If Kiba's right here, then... then... that dog behind you is not Kiba..." (end stutter)

The whole group, including the six saved people, started running from the three-headed dog that was not Kiba.

"You are the densest creature I have ever met!" Neji cried. "Aren't you supposed to be lucky?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Naruto yelled as they continued to run.

"Dammit!" Kiba shouted as they managed to escape without the dog pursuing them. "Come on, Akamaru! _Jinju Konbi Henge: Sotoro (Man Beast Combination Henge: Double-Headed Wolf)_ (3)!" Kiba and Akamaru snapped at the three-headed creature, clawing at it for a moment just before marking it with acidic urine, causing the dog to yelp and backed up. Retreating, the dog ran away from the superior canine, barking madly for a pack that it did not have. But not before sniffing Kiba's butt. Kiba barked angrily and snapped at the dog, making it yelp and flee. Kiba angrily shifted back to his normal form.

"That bitch...!" he said.

"What?" Naruto asked.

"I _told _her that I wasn't interested in a serious relationship..." he growled. "And that bitch _still _had the nerve to go sniffing my ass!"

The others, including the mildly freaked wizards, laughed at that.

"Stop laughing!" Kiba said, turning red, although he had a grin on his own face as well. 'I'm so awesome, that I have girl bitches _and _bitch bitches...!'

"Yeah, yeah," Sasuke said, sighing. "By the way, if any of you say a single word about anything we do in this forest, we'll kill you." He smiled. Naruto sighed. There was that creepy bishie smile mixed with the sadist smile once again. This guy needed a _therapist_.

"Um...uh...head count!" Naruto said, changing the subject and making a note to self to get Sasuke to get a check up with Ibiki or Shikamaru or Neji or anyone! "How many people are here and who do we have?"

"Our group, three, only has one," Sasuke said, glaring at Naruto as if it were his fault that they had ran away to get a head start.

"Well, we have three, Vikki, Akamaru, and... three of us. So that means we have—"

"All twelve missing wizards, no thanks to you idiots," a voice said.

"Aah!" Everyone (except Hinata and Neji) jumped as Gaara and his 'team' appeared out of nowhere, his team consisting of himself, Kankurou, and Sakura.

"Whaddaya mean?" Naruto asked Gaara. He spotted several people covered in his sand behind him.

"I caught eight while you fools were busy running away from that dog," he replied as Sakura finally started healing the various bruises on the wizards with Hinata.

"Oh, well not all of us have some sort of unbeatable defense like you do, Gaara," Sakura said in a passing comment as she pressed glowing green hands to the wounds. "I would have ran too."

"Why are you two here anyway?" Kiba asked. "No, not two..."

Fleur, Cedric, Viktor, and Harry crawled over the bushes, just as Sakura finished healing.

"Vere you healing them?" Viktor asked Sakura.

"I was taught a basic bruise healing spell," she lied. "It's the easier things, really, but I want to be a healer when I grow up."

"Zat is rassor advanzed for someone your age," Fleur said casually, giving Sakura a suspicious look.

"Well, it took me years to perfect it," she said cheerfully.

"Again, why are you all here?" Kiba asked again.

Sakura smiled. "Oh, a whole bunch of the judges burst in and were arguing something about how they were told that Harry was being trained in the forest...but Dumbledore sorted it all out. He explained how a whole bunch of the dragons escaped and that you guys were helping round up those who hadn't managed to escape. Most of them thought it was way over your heads and sent their champions to help out. _After _Jiraiya suggested this be an 'extra credit task', of course."

"Extra credit?"

"Yeah, we round up as many dragons as possible and we try to 'impress' them with our speed and possibly our spells," Kankurou said.

"So, that means all champions in the forest, non-champions out," Sakura said. "Tenten and Kiba and I will take out the wizards. You guys... have fun!" Sakura left laughing at the annoyed look on Gaara's face.

"Yes," he muttered to himself, really. "I can see myself having fun trekking through a forest with all of _you guys_."

"Wuzzat supposed to mean?" Naruto said. "You _loved _being with me on that nice nature walk in Madagascar."

"No, it was not fun. And you ate the chimaera."

"Your point being...?"

"...Nevermind. Just wondering if you'll ever feel guilty for destroying one of the few of those creatures in existence."

"Ah, not yet," he said with a grin.

"It's ah... it ees getting razzer dark," Fleur said nervously. "Per'aps we zhould leave soon once ze time limit ees up?"

"How long do we have until we have to catch all of the dragons?" Neji asked.

"Ve don't haff to catch zem," Viktor said quickly. "Ve only haff to find them and alert the others with sparks.

"That makes sense," Gaara said. "Dragons are _supposed _to be dangerous."

"So _how _long?" Neji repeated irritably.

"Until midnight," Harry answered. "That gives us four hours."

"And they _let _you guys stay out that late?" Naruto asked them all. "Normally, all of you guys are fast asleep by then, right?"

"And you aren't?" Fleur asked skeptically.

"We sleep when we want," he said. "Except for Gaara, of course..."

"...?" -

"Nevermind," he said with a shrug.

There was an awkward silence.

"Okay..." Naruto looked up at the others. "Well, I guess this is the part where we all split up."

"Shouldn't we stick together, since these are _dragons _on the loose?" Cedric asked politely.

"Well, it might be safer," Sasuke said, "but personally, I just want to split up and get this over with fast."

"Weren't you just way into the competition a while ago?" Naruto asked.

"Yes, but that was when the others were here," he said. "Anyway, anyone needs help, scream your bloody head off and we'll come, alright?"

"I don't think our voices will carry that far..." Naruto heard Cedric say as the group separated with their partners.

"Well," Naruto said to Harry. "You seem a bit worried."

"We're fighting a dragon," he replied bluntly. "Why shouldn't I be?" "Because I'll be here to protect you!" Naruto said, melodramatically, pumping his fists in the air. "I'll beat the crap out of _any _lizard that tries to eat me. And you, of course. I can't let anything eat the Boy-Who-Lived, can I?"

"What makes you think you could just deal with a dragon that easily?"

"Well, I stopped a huge snake when I was smaller and it was way bigger than that huge dragon I saw earlier. Of course, it might've just some summon, now that I think about it..." "A summon? Like what you were trying to teach me to do?"

"Yeah. Or at least, I think it was a summon. It might have just been a really really big killer snake."

"Like a basilisk?"

"A what-lisp?"

"A basilisk. It kills you if you look at it in the eyes," Harry answered as they jogged easily through the forest.

"Wow... that sounds like a certain Uchiha..." Naruto muttered.

"No, not like, 'look at me and I'll kill you'. Like 'look at me and automatically drop dead'. Almost like the Avada kedavra. Actually, it's a _lot _like it," he said thoughtfully.

"Oh, that freaky green thing?" Naruto said. He shook his head with a grin on his face. "Yeah, I bet he just _loved _that lesson. Bet you a Galleon he'd probably go learn it as soon as he could."

"He can't just learn how to do those curses," Harry said reasonably. "They're illegal, not to mention hard to cast. It's not as if he could learn a spell just by watching it, can he?"

Naruto paused. _Could _he? If the sharingan could copy jutsus and even movement, then shouldn't he be able to copy spells as well? After all, jutsus and spells were almost the same. The basics were alike. 'I'll have to remember to ask him that later...' Naruto thought to himself.

"Hey, Naruto," Harry said. "Just wondering, but you said something before about being a chuunin now. What's the difference between being a chuunin and being a... a... whatever you were before?"

Naruto frowned. "Uh...not sure, really. It's basically like graduating. Again. Like, you go from elementary school to middle school--or, this school, in any case. There's not really much of a difference, aside from ranking and what kinds of tasks your bosses can assign to you once you become a chuunin. Oh, except when you're a chuunin, you can finally start wearing a cool green vest!" He grinned. "I shoulda worn it to Madagascar..."

" Madagascar?"

"Oh yeah, never told you, did I? I went to Madagascar."

"I guessed that," Harry said dryly. "So anyway..." he said, trying to keep the conversation going, "what was that exam thing like?"

"Didn't I tell you before? Hm, I guess not. It changes every year, but the only thing that stays the same is the small tournament in the end where all final test-takers go against each other. This year, we also had a weird treasure hunt. It was pretty interesting though."

"A treasure hunt?"

"Yeah, basically we go all around the village looking for certain items. Some didn't exist at all, and with others, there sometimes weren't enough. That would make us start looting each other and eliminating some of the competition. Pretty fun actually. So long as you don't lose..."

"Yeah...being eliminated doesn't sound like such a good way to fail during the exam."

"It's not that bad!" Naruto laughed. "We had plenty of medic-ni...medics ready. I heard from Shikamaru and Temari that this is the second exam in the row where there were no deaths and less than fifteen critical injuries. I swear, the exams are getting easier by the year. But I don't expect it to last long though. I don't think the audience was too impressed by our performance..."

"People usually _died _during the exams?"

"Well, not in a year, apparently," he corrected casually. "Then again, there was the Sound attack."

"A sound attack?"

"Oh yeah, must've not told you about that either. The S...the Otonin attacked. They're sort of like a rival group of ours."

"Otonin?"

"Yeah. Another village."

"No offense, Naruto," Harry said, "but your villages are sounding like they've got something like a gang fight going on."

"Why would I be offended by something like that?"

"...Nevermind. So, um, you were attacked, huh?"

"Yup! But it was weird though... I don't think they were shin...that they were actually Otonin. They fought with _wands_."

"So you don't ordinarily fight with wands?" Harry asked.

"We're more of a hands-on group," Naruto said. "_You _of all people should know that. Why else would we not allow you to use your wand when we train you?"

"Good point," he said. "But what happened after they attacked?"

"Um...well, after the attack was over... there wasn't any attack anymore," Naruto said, a bit confused by what Harry was asking about.

"Obviously. But you just go on like it's a normal day?"

"Well, _yeah_. I mean, it's not like we're attacked _every _day, or something, but you can't let other people know if something's wrong. A village that freaks out after one attack will seem, like, _weak_. Of course, _maybe _Suna did need a bit of a recovery period. I don't know. We—me and Sakura and Gaara and Temari and Shikamaru—wanted to go back here fast. They couldn't find anything wrong with me anyway..."

"What do you mean?"

"I got hit by some weird spell. Didn't do anything to me, really. In fact, I've never felt better!" Naruto said cheerfully.

"Did Madame Pomfrey check up on you?"

"Yeah, she said that she couldn't find anything wrong with me, except for a bit too much adrenaline and a bit of a 'magic rush' or something like that. But I'm guessing that probably came with the adrenaline. Of course, there wasn't much time to sweat all the petty things anyway. You know, with the Goblet of Fire incident."

"Oh..." Harry paused. "I've been thinking... what if this tournament thing isn't just a way to kill me? What about you guys? I mean, I might understand why someone might want to kill me... It's not that I'm saying I'm anyone important or anything ((au contraire, you're the bwl…)), but someone's tried to kill me every year. It's not that new. But what about you guys? Why would we have the same enemy? I mean, we never even met before this year, and anyone I've known long enough who wants to kill me probably and anyone who knows you long enough to want to kill you... I doubt they're the same people, right?"

Naruto paused. He wondered if Shikamaru had even though about it. The chances that they had the same enemy were slim to none. So if those chances were fewer, wouldn't that mean that the chances of both of them having two enemies that were _working _together were greater, and even worse? Or maybe not even two enemies, but more than that! Because Sasuke was still sought after by the Sound, although the Akatsuki could care less about him, not including Itachi's odd obsession with showing at inopportune times to taunt his brother. And the Akatsuki wanted Naruto and Gaara, but they could care less about Neji and Kankurou and Sasuke. Lord Volder-something wanted Harry, but he didn't have any need for the other shinobi.

When Naruto thought about it, it almost made sense. Maybe all of their enemies were working together? No way! That was way to unlikely. Itachi scared to living shit out of Orochimaru, so the chances of those two working together within a mile radius of each other was like the chances Neji and Tenten would stop breaking up and getting back together for at least one whole year. But Harry's 'main enemy' was Voldemort. Voldemort had nothing to do with Neji, Sasuke, Naruto himself, Gaara, and Kankurou. Naruto and Gaara's main enemy was probably the Akatsuki, who had nothing to do with Neji, Harry, and Kankurou. Orochimaru was everybody's enemy, but Orochimaru probably could care more about a _girl _than any of _them_, except, maybe, for Sasuke, whose body he may still desire. Creepy old guys…

The more Naruto thought about it, the more and the less if made sense. Any group with Akatsuki and the Sound working together in it was doomed to fail. Maybe Voldemort was psychotic? Maybe he was good with putting two enemies together and forcing them to work without killing each other? Like, maybe he had good people skills like that. ((HAH! Hahahahaaaa...)) Or maybe he was a psycho with good people skills who was good with putting two enemies together and forcing them to work without killing each other.

"Uh...Naruto?"

He looked up at Harry and realized that he had stopped walking to think about this. "Heh, sorry about that," he said. "Tired yet?"

"No."

"Good. A month ago, you would've been half-dead if you tried running this far this fast," Naruto said approvingly.

He couldn't believe his ears. "Is that a compliment?" Harry asked him.

"Of course. Unlike the other guys, my compliments aren't offensive and disguised in insults."

"What do you mean?"

"You know...like what Sasuke said. 'He's so stupid, he'll be the one to save the world by accident'? That's a compliment."

"...When'd he say _that_?" Harry said angrily.

"Oh...it must've been behind your back... Heh, oops. Anyway, what that basically means is that you've got abnormal potential, skill, and luck. In Sasuke-world, that is. He's got his own personal universe... Just for him."

"...So should I feel flattered or annoyed or what?"

"All of the above!" Naruto said cheerfully. "By the way, you should hold on to these," he said, handing Harry a few small scrolls from his sleeves. "If you're attacked, these should hold them off long enough for you to run away. Too bad we can't teach you to really run..."

"I know how to run," Harry said. "I'm not as 'skilled' as you in all of the things you teach me, but I'm not that incompetent."

"You just keep telling yourself that," the blonde-haired shinobi said cheekily. "Haha, just kidding, I know you can run like a normal person, but you don't run really...fast."

"I'm not slow. I can outrun my cousin any day. Not that it'd take much... But I can outrun a pack of him and his friends."

"I don't want to know why you'd have to outrun a 'pack' of your cousin and his friends," Naruto said, "but I meant _really _run. Our way. Heh, but that's not really important right now. So these scrolls... _don't open them in your own direction_. Not in your face, not towards friends, not towards passersby. Don't even try it. You roll it open so that the inside is facing the enemies. The smaller scrolls are for just one or two. The bigger ones are for larger groups. Try to stick with the small ones. The big scrolls are a bit expensive. And hard to aim without hitting everyone between ten and two o'clock."

"…" Harry frowned. That was a pretty wide range, but what could these things do? "Where'd you buy these?" he asked out of curiosity.

"The Makoto girls. They're importing their inventions from home."

"Oh…" Harry shuddered, remembering what they had put him through (4). "Well, um...yeah, those... The Makotos. Yeah. ...They remind me of Fred and George a lot..."

Naruto snickered. "I wonder if they _met _yet," he said. "I really want to see what would happen. Of course, I also really want to get the hell out of the poor village before they do. Imagine just what they'd do once they met."

He and Naruto paused to think. They shuddered. And freaked out when a purple jet of flame shot out in front of them.

"AAAAAAH!" Naruto shouted, jumping back, pulling Harry out of the way by the back of his robes. Harry gagged, but quickly recovered from this, pulling out one of the smaller scrolls that Naruto had just handed to him.

A rain of shuriken shot straight at the dragon. Some missed and hit parts of the wings, creating tiny holes that leaked with blood, and a few were lucky enough to get stuck on the eyelid. Like Tenten said, shuriken were, indeed, nuisance weapons. Harry stared at the scrolls. Daaaamn! Why practice throwing shuriken and kunai when you could just shoot them out of a scroll like some kind of machine gun? ((of course, if Tenten ever heard him say that, she'd probably kick his ass))

The dragon screeched at him loudly and started heading right towards him. Harry turned around to run like hell when...

"Uzumaki Naruto Nisen Rendan (5)!" There was no sound of the angry screeching of a large creature... Harry turned around to see the dragon KO'ed on the ground and Naruto standing triumphantly above it.

"...How did you _do _that?" Harry said in amazement.

"I kicked the shit outta it," Naruto said smugly. "Put those scrolls away though. Those shuriken could put an eye out."

Grinning, Harry put the scrolls away in his pockets when, all of a sudden, he had a bad feeling. It wasn't a chill that made its way down his back. It was hot air. Something was breathing hot air on him. And it smelled like smoke.

"Harry..." Naruto said warily with wide eyes and no sign of the pride he had shown before. "Don't. Turn. Around."

Harry turned around.

And found a dragon in his face.

Shit. Naruto dug in his kunai pouch and threw the first thing he dragged at the dragon's eye, whose entire head was much too close to Harry for comfort. Man, and he was supposed to _protect _him too.

Either way, Naruto may have thrown the first thing he had grabbed from his kunai pouch out at the dragon, but for some reason, it was his wand that came out and hit the dragon in the eye.

"…"

He and Harry sweatdropped. Oops... so _that's_ where he put his wand...

"Are you an idiot?" Harry shouted, backing away from the pissed of dragon as Naruto ran straight at it with a rasengan in hand. "Why'd you throw your wand at...and what the hell are you doing running straight at the—holy shit!"

Oi... Silly Naruto had stumbled and the dragon knocked him behind, as it unknowingly stepped on Naruto's wand, probably crushing it. Harry winced. If they survived this, Naruto would definitely need a new wand. The dragon headed towards Harry.

There was no way he could outrun a dragon. There was no way he could fight it. The best he could probably do would chip a scale and get crushed by it's foot. Wasn't there any way he could defend himself?

Yeah! Maybe he could use Flitwick's Summoning charm and summon Godric Gryffindor's sword from Dumbledore's office! Sure, he's probably destroy anything and/or anyone who/that was unfortunate enough to be in the sword's path. And sure, with the way his charms were right now, he'd be better off running at the dragon and hoping for a quick death. And sure, even if a summoning charm miracle like Ron's levitating charm miracle in the girls bathroom in his first year managed to happen again, with the way his luck had been going so far, Harry would probably get impaled by the very sword he summoned.

So, he decided to summon the next best thing. Harry closed his eyes and bit his thumb.

"Summoning Technique! Ku…Kuchi…yose no Jutsu…?"

Hoping for a miracle, Harry opened an eye and gasped.

What. The. Fuck.

* * *

(1) Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Technique)—the one he used on Kakashi and stuff.  
(2) This dragon is the Antipodean Opaleye, native to New Zealand and Australia; lives mostly in valleys, have iridescent, pearly scales, a medium size for dragons; glittering, multicolored eyes with no pupils; vivid red flames; usually eats sheep; pale gray eggs  
All dragon information was obtained from the HP-Lexicon. I don't know what a lexicon is, but it's full of really interesting facts and has a list of creatures in the book called "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", which I can't find in bookstores at the moment... I need a credit card. Amazoncom has everything. Like holding meat up to me in a famine and saying it's diseased. Okay, not really, but ebay and amazon has sooo many things and I can't get anything! T-T Is the FB book NOT in America or something? Come on, people, why can't I find it?-!  
(3) Jinju Konbi Henge: Sotoro (Man Beast Combination Henge: Double-Headed Wolf) (with Akamaru): it's that two-headed dog-thing that Kiba and Akamaru turn to together, like when they were fighting Ukon and Sakkon.  
(4) I'm not sure whether to make a flashback of what he went through at the Makotos. Mainly because there's not going to be a lot of room for the less meaningful things. Or, it could just be like one of those things that characters freak out about but never tell anyone about it. Liiike...uh... in pokemon, something happened between brock and some lady who likes animals (probably dumped him or told him that she was never interested or something...) and whenever they mention her name, he goes to a corner and makes swirls in the sand with a little bluish black aura cloud floating above his head. But I don't think I could actually write that, so nah. (then again, I have them sweat drop a lot...)  
(5) Uzumaki Naruto Nisen Rendan (Uzumaki Naruto Two Thousand Combo) Basically Naruto's Naruto Rendan with 1,999 Kage Bunshin and himself. He hit Shukaku-Gaara with it. I think he'd probably be able to get a dragon too. Because Gaara is so much cooler than any dragon. 

**NOTE**: (you don't have to read this if you don't want to get confused by my rambling mind) You may notice that in "my world' (hey, my fic, my world, got it?), Neji's Byakugan is NOT all seeing. The tiny blind spot just isn't enough of a weakness for me. So I made it so that he can't see ghosts because his vision is, in a sense, too good. The ability to see through things enables the user to see so precisely that one can perceive matter on a quantum scale. Specifically, to be able to see not only individual atoms, but the space in between them to the point that with enough focus, one can see straight through the very matter an object is composed of. Since ghosts don't have 'matter' to see, not being solid, liquid, or gas, his vision passes right through it. Anyways, another weakness is that, well, mirrors don't make much of a difference to Neji. He can see them if he wants to so he can look in a mirror, but he can also see through them. Magical creatures, however, are invisible to his eyes. Not only because they reflect the light so that they are unable to be seen, but also because, well, they're magical. Obviously. So that means that Harry's invisibility cloak is also invisible to Neji's 'normal' eyes, since Invisibility cloaks are generally made of demiguise hair. Generally. BUT, just because Neji can't see it with his version of ordinary eyes, he can see it if he takes the time to activate his Byakugan (you know, to see chakra?). If the creatures are alive, he'll see their chakra patterns, although the tenketsu are a bit harder to spot, since the magical creatures in this world are new to him. Harder, but ot impossible. Once he gains a bit of a familiarity with a creature, he'll be able to find it and fight it more easily. Ghosts, on the other hand, would remain a faint blur of almost nonexistant magic. In fact, Neji can't see ghosts with his normal eyes, and when he searches for chakra, magic, or just traces of either one of them, then he'll just see a faint blur. So faint, he almost still can't see them unless he's extremely attentive, searching for them, or unless someone points out that they're actually there. Of course, if he completely runs out of chakra, and thus has no more energy to even look normally, THEN he'll see ghosts clearly, right before he passes out from chakra depletion. So yeah, I guess if Neji dies, he'll see ghosts too. Or passes out. Or whatever.

**

* * *

**

**My Thinking Corner**

Hey... I didn't realize this, but Sasuke's mom was named Uchiha _Mikoto_! Haha! Okay, not funny 'ha-ha', but funny ironic. Anyway... I feel so stupid... I was probably at school while I was sending the chapter, but I sent chapter 23 out to get beta-ed, and I waited...and waited... and waited some more. So I went ahead and published it before I got any response. I go through my mail again today... and fall over when I realize that I had actually put it in "Save as draft" instead of "send"... doi...

Also, if you haven't noticed, after being poisoned, Sasuke has a slight phobia with dragons. I decided that I'd give a certain few characters a strange fear. Neji's is spiders, Sasuke's is a flirty Orochimaru (actually, I think that everyone would be scared of that) and small dragons, and Kurogane and Harry's is probably the Makotos, for reasons that you will understand _later_ (but ONLY if I remember, and I rarely do, so someone can remind me before I start the second task. not that the second task really matters or anything, but things are a bit rushed after that, especially considering that after that, there's only about a third of the story left in the real HP book, and if I 'proportionalize' that to my own fic, then I wouldn't have much time left after that if I don't make any unexpected random sidetrips :stares pointedly at self in the mirror for making such a huge chuunin 'arc': (seriously, i read it myself and I pass out from exhaustion... I'd cut it short, but there are too many small things in it that a few people might find interesting to refer to in the future, like inspiration for a few of Naruto's new techniques, pranks, or 'technique'al pranks (like the sexy no jutsu)). In any case, I think I find Gaara's fear to be funniest (no, not the Nurse one, a different one...), but you won't find that out until... a loooong time later! _really_ long. And poor him... Sakura makes him face his fears... ("Damn all Weasleys and their pranks..." that's a quote from Gaara's thoughts as he attempts to face his fears and gets stuck facing them a few more times because he only tried once... that doesn't makes sense... but it doesn't matter because you won't understand it unless I give everything away)

Ah, and Neji doesn't really dislike Naruto. He's just a bit overprotective of Hinata. That, and he doesn't like the thought of mini-Naruto's running around, following him and going, "Uncle Neji, Uncle Neji! I farted in (insert name of Kiba's spawn here)'s face and now he and (insert Kiba's spawn's dog's name here) are trying to kill me! Aaaah!" or "Uncle Neji, help me, I saw Tsunade-baachan (sp?) 's kadondadonks and now she wants ta kill meeh!"

Also, nin doesn't mean ninja, right? Because I thought 'nin' was just a prefix to say people. Like Sannin would be "three people", not three ninjas? I mean, I'm...I'm confused... (I really wish my sister would start bringing her Japanese textbook home again... I'm forgetting everything that I spent three weeks learning...! Waaaah! I wasted three weeks?-!)

Anyway, I was looking at the story stats and looked at the number of reviews I got on each chapter. The one that got the most reviews was the one with the Naruchimaru prank. Luckily for me (and probably more so for you guys) that after this 'bonus task', the next chapter is going to be dedicated completely to pranks. Quick question though: should Naruto prank EVERYONE or just Malfoy, Ron, and maybe Rita Skeeter if he can get out of Hogwarts with an ingenious plan that shall take me all night to strategize...? I love pranks. It gives me a chance to be extra creative and write things that I can only _dream_ of doing. So: prank all (including on each other), prank Malfoy and/or Ron, and Skeeter? Your choice. I'm taking votes on this on. I'm also trying to think of something Anko could do to/with Snape. Something funny. But not over the top. I don't want her dead, you know.

And you know, Viktor Krum and Tenten are a lot a like, when Kishimoto and Rowling write. They practically don't exist until something big happens. And sometimes not even then! Of course, in an interview, Rowling said that he'd be a bit more important later. Ironically, same here.

**bla**: Hm... you've got a point. I'll edit out the word 'shinobi', but I really don't know what else I could do about that chapter (in reference to Dumbledore's storytelling in chapter 5). Of course, I COULD just re-edit the whole thing and make it so that that conversation never happened, but that's a bit much work... Hn, maybe later when I finish the whole story and go back for general editting.  
**Anonymous**: I explained that part three paragraphs ago, so you might have to scroll up to see it. Don't worry, I think you're (probably) a perfectly good judge in character. I'm the one with the problems with the personalities. Hm...I oughta fix that someday. Hopefully soon. And did I explain the Bill Charlie thing? I might have editted/added that part in the last chapter at the bottom. I think.  
**brian**: ooooouch! T-T (glare) I suppose you're the one responsible for this giant toad sitting on me, aren't you. -.-  
**Anonymous**: Neji did get off easy. You should se what happens later. And you can count on Sasuke being a nosy pain in the butt. And Harry. And Viktor and Fleur and Cedric. Dang, Naruto's got a _lot _of people prying into his business. Poor kid. And actually, one person in the group already knows about it. You'll have to guess who. He's already figured it all out. And that coffee incident? Based on a true story. I was trying to stall someone from getting into a room for a certain reason, so I was standing in front of the door causing all kinds of crazy junk. First I spilled lukewarm coffee on a person (hot coffee is hot and hurts, cold coffee is cold, but lukewarm coffee, in my opinion, is the worst). And then, I 'tagged the person'. Said person chased after me and attempted to beat the crap out of me. And I ran like a bat out of hell. Needless to say, my diversionary tactics were successful enough for my personal clean-up crew to finish their job. As for what I accidentally did to the room... I'm not going to share. And I like that you like the war of the media part. Unfortunately for TC, Rita Skeeter's got a lot of experience. Hm, Rita's spying Animagus skills versus Shino's kick-ass ninja skillz. This is the battle of the lifetime! Okay, not really. But at the end of their little "war"... well, I can only say it ends badly for one of them. Well, and then both of them. One wins the war, the other kills'em. You'll never see it coming. Okay, so maybe you will. Anyway, as for Shino's shrinking technique... I don't know. It sounds too much like the... uh... the Changing Chopstick from... dangit, I keep on thinking Shanghai shuffle, but that can't be right. I know it isn't, because it's just a piece of music I'm playing So it's not Shanghai Shuffle... There's a yellow guy in there with dots on his head like Krillin in DBZ. Dangit... can't remember. And then there's some Asian girl, and a cowboy guy and some other guy who's name I'm SURE is Raymundo. Yeah. But I can't use that idea because it reminds me too much of that show. Too weird. Anyway, I've got a different thing in mind for Shino. And uh... yeah, it does have something to do with bugs.  
**Potato-sama**: Dang, I'm starting to run out of cows. (tosses another one and counts the few I have left) And no, Sasuke's not two-timing anyone. But yeah, he's kinda hitting on her. He'll do that a lot, you'll notice later on. But he's been a bit strange like that ever since he's left Orochimaru. Hitting on girls, yes, but not ugly ones. Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for Ino), he was placed in Slytherin, where the only one girl in his year is a cow. In fact... (takes back the cow I threw at you and tosses Pansy Parkinson instead). There you go, you can have her. Anyway, he actually does like Sakura too. But not that kind. Like a sister, more like. A very close sister. But that's not why he would flirt with her. Hehehe... when you think about who he's dating and her schemes, you might understand the way he thinks as well. Not that Ino's aware of what he's planning, but he's doing the same thing she's doing, only a bit more and it's a bit for himself as well. Okay, that was confusing, but you might get it if you remember this waaaay later.  
**setjerro**: Eh? What am I doing wrong? (confused) And OW! You hit me?-!-?-! (falls over dead) Now look at what you've done. You've killed me, you scary sadist you. As for Sasuke the Pokemon Master... you've GOT to send me that fic. Sounds hilarious. Anyway, here's the update, so please don't hit me... T-T

Also, I'm in a new forum thingie. If you ever have any questions that you want answered immediately, you could post it on there too and I'll answer them ASAP. Although my 'as soon as possible' isn't very fast, I'm certain that it's most likely faster for me to write a one or two paragraph post in one place rather than writing an entire chapter and THEN getting to your question. Any immediate questions, you can PM me. Or try getting it on the shoutbox. But I might miss it if you do that. Yeah. Anyway, the forum is

http-:-/-/-fanwritefic.-conforums.-com/-index.-cgi

Also…I don't suppose any of you guys know any decent enough Spanish to help me translate some of my stuff, do ya…? I've got finals next weeks, and one of my finals essay says I gotta write a 180-word story. Person who can help me get done with this will get to have a random spoiler for this fic, or even Harry Potter Year 5 (possibly year 6, but I can't guarantee anything I tell about that will actually be what happens, since I only have a vague idea of what's going to happen). But maybe more than one spoiler, since they're all connected. So please someone help me! (begging prettily?) ((oh, and by the way, when I say spoilers, I'm not writing EVERYTHING OUT. It's a "you ask, I answer" thing. I'd prefer to get this over with over IM's, but e-mail's fine too. First reviewer who responds to this dilemma of mine gets the Spoiler Ticket! (crosses fingers and hopes for a miracle)))

By the way, finals are next week, my computer's down, and I'm really really tired, so ddon't expect any really cast updates anytime soon.

(goes back to read this part) Okay, now I feel kinda pathetic about this. I'll probably end up begging for help every once in a while at the last minute like this.

And to beta: I'm sorry I didn't wait for this chapter to get beta-ed. I haven't been waiting long enough for you to respond to my chapters, but the thing is that my computer is dead right now, and with finals coming up, I might not be able to use the library computers from here on out. Also, I may be grounded for the summer, and even if I wasn't, there's a possibility that a person would confiscate my games. Because I got a SEVENTY-NINE. Almost all A's and B's… T-T. Oi… no computer…summer…dying from the thought… Anyway, I'm actually not sure whether I'll have a computer or not, so this _might_ be the last I'll post for a while. Which is why I posted ahead of time before my chapters got beta-ed. Sorry. I really really really erally am sorry about that. It's just bad luck you know?


	25. Chapter 25

Okay, it's been a while since I've updated, mainly because I haven't gotten a response from my betas. Why haven't I received a response? Er... (I am sorely tempted to blame it on them, but I can't because it's not their fault)...erm… uh... well you see...I kinda deleted all the name thingies in the address book while I was deleting other people's addresses, since I didn't really need some of them. So, um...I couldn't really send it out. Yeah. (bows) Sooooorry! Can you guys e-mail me back so I can re-save your address stuff? (begs with sparkly eyes) I'm really really really really really really (etc.) sorry about this and about having not sent you the most recent chapters! (I pull out my sparkly eyes here)

And since this chapter was un-betaed, anyone who points out a mistake, I'll try to go back and fix it. And if it's confusing, I'll add an explanation at the end. Oh, and, um...if you haven't realized it, my computer's back. I mean, well, I'm using an old one. Yeah.

* * *

Chapter 25: Out of the Frying Pan 

Noooo way. This wasn't right. He wasn't supposed to summon _this_! He wanted something big, like what Shino did with the giant bug or what Sasuke summoned, with the huge wall. Not—...not this...

Harry stared at three tiny dragons as they fluttered around his feet. None of them were even the size of his hand.

'Dammit...I am so screwed...'

Harry looked up when a flash of red and blue lit up the area. He covered his eyes and, when he reopened them, there was a huge opalescent creature standing in front of the dragon. It was evenly matched in size, although the newer creature didn't seem to leave any footprints, for something its size. In fact, it didn't seem as if it touched the ground at all, although the grass at its feet rippled with the energy. Something didn't feel right. He was much too close. Harry backed away, more frightened of the...the _thing_ that was protecting him, rather than the dragon that wanted him dead. The tiny dragons at Harry's feet were completely forgotten as he slowly backed away.

The four-legged creature had fiery red fur. No, literally. Well, maybe not literally, but its fur wasn't normal. Instead of a solid form, it's 'fur' was more like some kind of weird aura. Something that didn't have a real shape and was constantly moving, even when it stood still.

The creature and the dragon stood face-to-face for a moment when the creature suddenly pounced like a cat, gripping the back of the dragon's neck and forcing it down. The impact caused some strange force that knocked Harry over. The dragon howled. There were scorch marks in it's scales. This strange heat _burned_ a _dragon_? Harry watched, his fear dissipating only slightly. This creature was as dangerous as hell, but it couldn't possibly overcome the dragon's naturally heat-resistant scales!

Dozens of Stunners shot out from several directions, knocking the dragon over and rendering it unconscious. The huge, flame-like creature glanced towards Harry, it's murky red eyes gleaming. Harry backed away fearfully at the creature that could have taken down a dragon when it bared its teeth and..._sneered _at him before disappearing. Naruto ran over to him.

"Harry, back up, that dragon had—had dragonlings!" he said.

"Wait, uh...Naruto," Harry said. "This is my, um... They're my summons."

Naruto stared at three of the tiny dragons, who had now gotten really, really tiny and were landing on the ground wrestling each other.

"You're kidding me, right?" he asked him, picking the dragons up and out of the grass so they wouldn't get lost. "They aren't even from the... from _Asia_."

" Asia. Yeah," he mumbled. "Um, aren't these things supposed to be, like, huge and powerful?"

"Well," Naruto said, swinging one around by the tail, much to its annoyance. "Wait...I think they _are_ Eastern dragons..."

"What makes you say that?"

"They've got three toes, a mane, and no wings," Naruto said.

"But aren't the Asian ones, like, narrow?"

"Yeah, I think it just so happens that... your dragons are really fat."

Harry fell over.

"So I've got three fat baby dragons," he said. "That's bloody great..."

"Well, it's not that bad," Naruto noted.

"What's not that bad? I try to summon something to save my own ass, and it turns out, I'm more likely to save _these things_ than they are to save _me_."

"You haven't passed out or anything. The more chakra you put into a summon, the bigger the dragons get," Naruto said. "I think. Maybe we'll ask the Makotos about this? I have no idea about this stuff. But I do know that if you summon something and train it long enough, it gets bigger. I think. Well, I do know that they start off small. When I first summoned, I only got tiny _tadpoles_. At least you got something a bit more impressive than that."

He approached the fallen dragon and began to look around its feet.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for my wand..." Naruto muttered. "I could've sworn it landed around here somewhere..."

"Does it really matter?" Harry asked. "It's probably been a smashed to splinters. The pieces probably wouldn't even fit in a matchbox—"

"Ah-hah! I found it!" the blond declared, holding up what looked like a long, thin, shiny thing.

"It...it's in one piece! _After_ a dragon _stepped_ on it!" he said. "How'd that happen?"

"Um...you really want me to explain how something didn't get crushed?" Naruto asked him. "Well, a dragon stepped on it, and it didn't get crushed..."

"No, let me see!" Harry said. Naruto handed him the wand and he frowned. "...This wand isn't even made of wood!"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you really think this is wood?" Harry asked him, holding it up for Naruto to see. "It's not wood, it's some kind of rock!"

Naruto took it and actually looked at it closely. "Oh, you're right. It's only partly wood."

"What is it really?" he asked.

"Petrified wood. It's like a rock. Made from wood."

"...I guess that makes sense... But how can it do magic?"

"Well, Sasuke's is made of some kind of snake bone. How does _that_ do mag—?" Naruto was interrupted when Sasuke came bursting out of the trees. "...Hi?" Speak of the devil...

"I saw something!" Sasuke said.

"Great," Naruto said. "I see things too."

"That's not what I meant," he said hastily. "I saw some kind of huge red animal thing here! Like the Kyubi!"

"Oh...um, Kyubi?" Naruto said.

"Yeah. Huge fox? Killer aura? Destroyed half of the Leaf? Ring any bells?" he snapped.

"No," he said. "I meant, I didn't see any Kyubi. It's sorta dead, isn't it?"

Sasuke frowned at Naruto, but Naruto did as well.

"Say... where's Cedric?"

Sasuke spun around and paused.

"Shit!"

* * *

"They're all fighting dragons right now..." Temari said glumly as she, Shikamaru, and Ino sat in the library, spying on the Golden Trio minus Harry Potter and studying certain things to prevent future anarchy, if Shikamaru's predictions were right. 

"Mm-hm..." Ino mumbled, reading a book, _Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed_.

"Ino, put that away," Shikamaru said. "You may hex others on your own time."

"But...but Pansy—"

"Pansy can not get any uglier, whether you hex her or not," Shikamaru chided her. "Now from what I gathered from Shino...where is he anyway?"

"He's been laying low everywhere," Temari answered. "In addition to the fangirl attacks he's been getting recently, he's also trying to avoid getting any other unwanted attention." Ah, yes, the Rita Skeeter article... Shikamaru sighed, sad for the Aburame. Personally, he thought that Shino was in way over his head. Not that it mattered. The Aburame wouldn't back down from something like this.

"In any case, according to Shino, he and the others had to resort to breaking our... rules and openly performed our magic in front of others." Shikamaru paused as Draco and his goons passed by, probably wondering where Viktor Krum was... "Ino, you can take a break from the List," he said.

"Yes!" she cried, pushing all of the papers away from her as she stood up and prepared to run out of the school library. Out of all of the students on her list, she had only been able to locate and eliminate five so far.

"I have here another a list of the wizards who saw our magic," he said. "They are still on Hogwarts ground. Take care of them."

"You suck!"

* * *

Neji and Fleur were walking through the forest. He really wanted to leave her behind, but considering the fact that she'd probably get killed and eaten in the forest... well, it would have been a real relief to get rid of her, since it was really hard to think about Tenten when he was around her. It really was distracting, and he could never look away from She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, even if he tried. 

The temptation to leave Fleur in the dust was almost too much, but the thought of the blaming and the finger-pointing that would ensue kept him at bay. Neji instead walked ahead of her. She couldn't easily walk by his side, but she couldn't keep up without running a bit either.

But then, Neji paused. His eyes became a darker shade of gray with thin lines inside for a short moment, until Fleur finally caught up (1). By then, his eyes had returned to it's usual white color.

"What is it?" Fleur asked him.

"This way," Neji said, changing directions suddenly.

"Are we lost?" she asked incredulously.

"I'm never lost," he muttered. They walked in silence for a while until...

"Where the heck is Sasuke?" Neji asked Cedric, who was sitting at a tree.

"We saw a flash of light," Cedric said. "A little while ago. And Sasuke said something about a monster, and started running. He probably meant for me to follow after him, but he outran me. Really easily. And I consider myself to be in pretty good shape. Else wise, I wouldn't have entered the tournament. But this was ridiculous. Are all Japanese this... healthy?"

"You walk so fast..." the girl panted, relieved that Neji had finally stopped running at such insane speeds. "Oh, hi Cedric..."

"Were you not here when Chouji was? Of course we're not. But I do have to say that the _majority_ of us are in shape..." Neji frowned. Throw them off-track, eh? "Our magic mainly revolves around how fit we are. Most of the time, anyway. That's the advantage that Westerners have over us. We need a lot of training. _You_ are naturally born with magic, whether you go to schools or not."

"So basically... you just have a lot of tricks?" Cedric asked him.

"You call my techniques little 'tricks' again, and I'll show you how 'tricky' they are," Neji said. "It's like reading. You aren't born learning how to do it. But after your parents show you a bit of it, but it comes easily to you because you've been speaking it before you read it. It's almost a bit hard to explain."

"Where all the things about you in the newspaper true?" Fleur asked him.

"The Daily Prophet newspaper? Or the Witch Weekly magazine?" Neji asked. "Because the Daily Prophet, if I don't say so myself, says that Gaara and Naruto are demons that are going out, and that Sasuke was kidnapped by some pedophile. What's next, a swastika on my forehead?"

"That... that's true," Cedric said. Neji paused, thinking. What happened to them not believing anything they said. Perhaps they believed that Fleur's presence would 'inspire' him to tell the truth. Bullshit. "I mean, maybe Gaara... I've seen him before in the hallways. He definitely gives off 'demon vibes', so that's almost believable. But Naruto? Isn't he the guy who runs into walls?"

"On occasion. But that was only after Fred and George gave him those 'fireball' candies. I heard he was running around for hours looking for water until Kiba dragged him to the bathroom and dunked his head under water," Neji said. He paused again. What should he do with these two people? And what was that thing about... three hundred meters away. Neji looked away from the two so that they couldn't see his eyes develop those traces of gray in them. Someone dressed in all black, speaking with a strange girl. She kind of looked like Temari, only not. She was much less 'aggressive' looking, but that was probably only because she didn't look like a shinobi or something. Otherwise, it was too dark to see who was speaking to her.

Neji frowned. "You two stay here. I'll be back in a minute," he said to them. They watched him suspiciously as he ran off.

* * *

Kankurou looked up as someone stepped through his chakra threads. Rolling his scroll shut, all summoned objects disappeared. Moments later, Neji came bursting through the trees. Damn, a Hyuga... Kankurou hoped it was too dark for him to see. Damn them and their freaky eyeballs. Kankurou hoped that he didn't see anything, and if he did, he didn't tell anyone else. This was going to be a surprise. Possibly an unpleasant one, but still a surprise. 

"Neji?"

"Kankurou?"

"Huh?"

"Who was that person?"

"What person?" Kankurou asked. "There's no other person."

"I saw it!"

"You need to get your eyes checked."

"My eyes are over perfect! Better than yours!"

"Yet, you are seeing things that aren't there..." he said thoughtfully.

"I'm not!" Neji activated his Byakugan completely and paused. Seeing the strange expression on Neji's face, Kankurou spread his threads out even further.

"...Your champion is getting killed," he said bluntly.

"Damn idiots!" the Hyuga shouted angrily, running away. Kankurou sighed and followed after him. He just had to see someone fight a horde of eight-legged creatures without screwing everything up.

* * *

Fleur and Cedric didn't expect the white-eyed Hogwarts student to run so quickly. What on earth was up with the Hogwarts students and their abnormal ability to outrun everyone in seconds? The two didn't get far when Fleur tripped over something hard and a bit sticky. She stared at her foot in horror to find that she had stepped in some awful smelling light yellow _guck_. 

"...That's _gross_," Cedric said, after staring at her foot for a moment.

"Oh, jus' stop staring and 'elp me!" Fleur said angrily, attempting to disentangle her leg and only succeeding in getting her hands covered in goop and remained relatively stuck in this strange substance.

Cedric laughed, pulling out his wand. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It just looked rid—"

"Cedric Digg'ry, if you say zat I am looking ridiculous, so 'elp me, I shall 'ex you!"

"Radiant," he finished. "I was going to say you look radiant. Zest magnifick." He grinned at her.

"_Menteur_," she muttered. "...And don't you ever try to say zat _ever _again... You _butcher _ze French lang-wage."

"Your raging homicide of the English language isn't much better," Cedric said with a smile.

"Oh be quite," she muttered.

"Quite what?" he asked innocently.

"Excuse me?"

"Nevermind," Cedric said. "Now hold still. _Diffindo_!"

Fleur gave a small squeal as the Severing Charm cut a part of her pants leg through some of the gloop. "Zat nearly cut me, _cancre_!"

"Insults are lost if the insult-ee don't understand what on earth you are saying, Fleur," Cedric said idly.

"You... you... doonce..." she muttered under her breath tugging on her leg. Great, her pants leg were torn and that disgusting goop was still stuck on her. The Severing Charm had done little to even thin the substance on her leg. Fleur looked up at Cedric to glare at him for his failed attempt and her ruined clothes when she froze, suddenly pale.

"Hey..." Cedric said slowly. "If I just happened to turn around... I wouldn't like what I would see, would I?"

"...No."

"Great!" he said. He suddenly spun around and shouted, "_Stupefy_!" Knocking away a large spider about the size of a small cat. He was not relieved to see that was only a small one was just one among hundreds. He sighed. "We are so screwed."

"Oui."

"_Arania Exumai_! (3)" Dozens of spiders flew with the incantation of this spell. Cedric pulled Fleur up to her feet.

"Come on," he said. "Just pull really, really hard!" Fleur tugged on her foot, trying to get unstuck. The goo stretched and then dragged her back to the spot where she originally was.

Cedric sweatdropped.

"Ew...! No, no, no, no, NO!" Fleur shouted, firing spells at the spiders in a frenzy. "Zis is _disgusting_!" She screamed when a spider she hadn't spotted jumped onto her back and into her hair from behind. It would have been much less horrifying if it wasn't the size of a very large dog.

"Aaaaaah!" she cried, trying to get its disgusting hairy legs off of her. Cedric spun around but didn't even raise his wand when someone shouted something in another language and the spider flew away, as if struck by an incredible force. Fleur turned instinctively to the left to see what kind of _thing_ created that invisible force that had sent the huge spider flying. It was Neji Hyuga.

"Monsieur Ewga!" she cried.

"...'_Ewga_'?" Cedric repeated.

Neji glared at them as if this was all their fault. He held one palm thrusted out and his left hand wielding the wand. He switched the wand from his left hand to the right and shouted, "_Arania expulius_!" It was similar to Cedric and Fleur's spell, only a bit different in color and strength. While the 'arania exumai' spell would knock back a spider violently enough to damage it, this spell would force back multiple spiders, but enough to stun them momentarily and keep them away for a short period of time.

After clearing away the majority of the spiders near them, Neji ran straight towards Cedric and Fleur and briefly inspected her leg.

"This is disgusting..." he muttered. He held his wand strangely in his hand, beneath his palm as if it were some sort of hidden knife. A strange way to hold the wand, but it must have been vital to what he had done. With his index and middle finger aligned with the wand, he sort of... poked at it (4). It was a mix of a swipe and a poke, really. Well, whatever he did, it cut loose her leg. Though her foot was still covered in it, at least she wasn't stuck to the ground and...and...

Fleur, having gotten away from the sticking goo, had gotten far enough to see what it was exactly that she had stepped in. It was a web. A huge web. One that reached all over the trees. Neji got up from his knees and straightened himself up, pulling his wand back out of his baggy sleeves when he spun around suddenly. A massive spider their height had, in the darkness, gotten past Neji's odd ability to foresee oncoming danger and, as he turned, knocked the wand from his hands. It went skidding somewhere in the dirt.

Before Fleur could scream, she heard Neji mutter something to himself, almost angrily. "..._kay haku nichahachi show_...!" (5) ((what she really heard was Hakke Hyaku Nijuhachi Sho (Eight Trigrams One Hundred Twenty-Eight Palms)))

Fleur and Cedric gasped when Neji went straight for the spider, unarmed. He took it down easily and attacked them all without missing a beat. There was some sort of strange look in his eyes that made him look almost infuriated as he tore through the spiders with his palms. His bare hands! Fleur and Cedric, now on their feet, watched him in amazement, casting spells every once in a while. Not that it was all that necessary, considering the speed at which Neji was taking out the spiders.

"It's _always _spiders," he muttered as the rest of them began to scatter. He had a dark substance covering his face and coating his robes. "Always!" He paused, with a horrified expression on his face.

"What is it?" Cedric asked.

Neji didn't even bother to look at them. "Leave very slowly," he said, only turning his head slightly, his back facing them. "Don't look... okay, run away fast and don't look back, you got it?"

Fleur and Cedric exchanged now nervous glances, wondering just how many horse sized spiders could possibly make Neji act so strangely.

"On second thought..." Neji said, still not turning around. "Stay where you are."

They turned around and saw a monstrous eight-legged creature. It didn't look like any ordinary spider, instead of strange prickly hairs, it had an oddly shiny sheen on its surface, as if it weren't even a real spider.

"Oi, Neji..." a voice said. Heh? Oh, it was just Kankurou. They hadn't seen him in the dark clothes. Kankurou looked at the ground, scuffing his feet in the dirt with his hands in the large pockets of his robes. "Congratulations, you did all this without your wand. But it looks like you're in over your head."

"I could take care of it," Neji growled.

"No you can't," he said amiably. "Something that big would take... magic. I suggest you get your want and take control of this big one behind me." Kankurou winked. Which was pretty weird. Especially considering that this was Kankurou we're talking about. But Neji seemed to understand, even if Cedric and Fleur didn't. Neji, after wiping his face and wincing at the grime that was also on his sleeves, ran forward and picked up the wand that had lain fallen on the ground.

He pointed the wand at the huge spider behind Kankurou and muttered something that Cedric and Fleur couldn't catch. After a short moment, the spider behind Kankurou began to move straight at them.

Fleur screamed as the spider neared her... but went straight past them and tackled something in the darkness. She gasped, seeing the spider under Neji's control and another one clash. They were both easily many times the size of Hagrid's hut. The second spider was huge and rather hairy, unlike the strange one that Neji had under his command. Even though Neji seemed more preoccupied by the spider guts that were now decorating his clothes than the battles itself. Kankurou watched the spiders fight, his arms still buried in his robes' pocket.

The hairy spider sunk its pincer-like teeth in Neji's spider, but it did nothing. It then backed up slightly with its abdomen pointed towards Neji's and that same kind of sticky substance spewed from the end. The spider web coated the spider.

"What now?-!" Neji growled to Kankurou as their spider struggled to escape. "It can't move!"

"Doesn't need to," Kankurou said smugly as his spider fell over onto it's back.

"...Your spider is on its back, unable to move an inch, and is quite useless to us. What on earth do you mean by, 'it doesn't need to'? Need to what—?"

Instead of some sort of sticky web material, a purple gas emitted from its end and enveloped the other spider.

"I shoulda made it green," Kankurou sighed. "It would have been a lot funnier... Cover your mouths guys."

Cedric, Fleur, and Neji covered their faces (much to Neji's disgust) and backed away from the spider, wary of this mysterious purple gas. "Makoto-product," he said. "Don't ask me what it does. I have no idea, and I don't want to figure it out." The other spider fell over on its back as well. Its legs curled up hideously to its body as it twitched and died. Kankurou finally removed his hands from his robes and pulled out a scroll, unrolling and then rolling it up once again, the huge spider disappeared and then he slipped the scroll back into his pocket.

"I zink I am going to be sick..." Fleur whimpered.

"_You're_ going to be sick?" Neji asked disdainfully. "_I'm_ covered in spider guts!"

"That _is_ sickening," Cedric commented. ((AN: it is around here where my memory fades and I realize in horror that I have lost one of the pages of my notes...))

"Spider-guck..." Kankurou laughed to himself, but loudly enough for the others to hear. "Not only are you covered in their 'blood' or whatever, but also their organs and stuff. And by stuff, I mean the 'pre-poop'. Because the things they eat are turning into _poop_."

Neji looked sick.

"I've got to go jump into the lake now..." he muttered, running away.

"Oh no, I've chased the almighty Hyuga away..." Kankurou said thoughtfully. "_Clean freak_." The other two stared at Kankurou in confusion. "As far as I know, Neji hates these three things above all others: spiders, dirty things, and babies. He is currently covered in baby spider guts. A nightmare come true... Ew, I think I stepped in some of this crap too... _Scourgify_." Kankurou cleaned the guts from his toes. "That's gross. Anyway, where's Sasuke?" he asked Cedric.

"He ran off somewhere. He said he saw some kind of demon or something like that. I guess he meant some kind of dark creature like that..."

Kankurou rolled his eyes after a brief moment of worry. "Eh, it's probably just Naruto. The Daily Prophet called him a demon, so I guess Sasuke's not taking any chances. Idiot's obsessed about finding out why Naruto's better than him in some things. Why can't he just admit that the other idiot got better...?"

"At what?" Cedric asked.

"Hm, martial arts," Kankurou answered. "It's really big in Japan. our magic anyway. We have a bit of a thing going on. It's style. Okay, not really, but we think that the better shape you're in, the better at magic you're at. In most cases, it is. Anyway, Sasuke probably believes that Naruto is a demon, but we all know that the Daily Prophet is full of shit—"

"It is?" Fleur asked.

"Of course," he said. "If it was right, then I wouldn't exist—and neither would you, Cedric—and Gaara and Naruto would be either really close friends or even boyfriends."

"Yeah, I already knew the Daily Prophet was a bit inaccurate," Cedric said. "I realized that when I apparently disappeared from the Triwizard Tournament. Oh, and when they said Harry was twelve, and I'm eighteen. And not to mention, this Naruto-Gaara relationship. The whole school knows it's Gaara-Sakura."

"...WHAT?"

"Zat pink-'aired girl, right?"

"Yup. It's a pretty strange couple. I mean, I've seen Sakura before. She's nice. And Gaara's... he's... when you pass him, it's like walking over a grave. What's a weirder couple than that?"

"Pansy Parkinson and Sasuke," Kankurou said immediately.

* * *

Somewhere in Hogwarts, Pansy sneezed. 

And somewhere in the Forbidden Forest, Sasuke shuddered.

* * *

"Anyway... I actually made up that couple," Kankurou continued. 

"What do you mean by that?" Cedric asked.

"I was only trying to distract Gaara, so I randomly chose Sakura as a girl he liked. He doesn't look it, but he's actually a bit shy and easily embarrassed. Maybe... Anyway, I think he just hides it very well with his violent side. So it wasn't hard to mess with his head and chase him out of the Great Hall."

"You mus' be joking!" Fleur exclaimed. "You _randomly_ made zat up?-!"

"Yeah..."

"But you're right!" Cedric added.

"No, I'm not."

"_Yes_, you _are_!"

"Gaara likes Sakoora!" Fleur said. "It's vairy obvious, really, if you look into ze details."

"He acts completely different around her," Cedric said. "He's completely... well, much less frightening whenever he's with her. He does almost anything she asks him to do. He stays around only her in his free time, and he _turned red _when you said he like her!"

"I...I didn't see that!" Kankurou exclaimed.

"Well, you were a bit busy, fighting off that magic sand stuff, you know..."

"That...that's true," he said, rubbing his temples.

"'ow could you not 'ave known?" Fleur asked. "You even 'ad your own eveedence!"

"How could I have not seen that?" Kankurou said to them in astonishment with a growing grin on his face. "You guys are _geniuses_! Gaara _does _like Sakura!"

"Shouting that out again, brother?" a quiet, eerie voice said from the darkness of the forest.

Kankurou turned around with a sudden feeling of dread in the pits of his stomach. He looked back and found the devil himself glaring up at him.

"Hi...Gaara..." he said weakly.

Kankurou found himself running away with an angry little brother chasing after him with an angry, demonic gleam in his eyes. Kankurou prayed to the gods for a quick death.

"...It is amazing how he can run zo quiggly," Viktor Krum said, making his way through the bushes as they watched the brothers disappear in the forest.

"Why's that?" Cedric asked.

"Wiz that gourd on his back... I can not effen carry that," he said in a low voice. "I can barely drag it across the vloor wizout magic. Gaara Sabaku carries it so easily, it seems fairy light. On ze firz day ve came, I zat at the Sl...Sly...Slyth... I zat as the green snake table, and they let it slip that if vos made of zand. Just zand, and a lot oof it."

"And...ahm...Neji 'Ewga 'as a vairy accurate sense of... of direction," Fleur said hesitantly. "Abnormally great instincts. We were not attacked the moment we came inside zis forest while 'e was leading me through until 'e left and we were attacked by ze spiders. It ees almost as if 'e can see danger before it comes."

"And before I got lost over here, when I was with Sasuke, we passed by a small clearing a while back. It was a bit strange. Trees were cut down, there were tiny knife marks on one tree that had not been cut down, and there was blood on the ground, making strange... scribbling marks. Also, the entire area was marked by a white line, surrounding it. Maybe it's some kind of ritual animal slaughtering place with fake or incredibly weak wards, but I found this. Look familiar to any of you?" Cedric pulled out and held up a shuriken.

"No," Viktor and Fleur said.

"Oh. Well, I don't know what it is either. I'm going to ask around my house to see if anybody knows that this is. Later. All I know is that it's sharp and is probably some sort of weapon. anyway, we should get out partners. Seems that all three of us lost them."

And so the three school champions started heading in the direction that Gaara and Kankurou had ran in. Meanwhile, Neji, who had been watching them in the bushes nearby during the whole discussion, wrote down everything that he had learned and reminded himself to later report his findings to the others.

* * *

_"The sun was unusually bright today..." a voice had said. Sasuke whirled around and spotted a man. On a horse. A headless horse. No, the man WAS a horse. What the hell? _

_"That's because it's the sun," Sasuke said plainly. _

_"And the stars are not shining..." _

_"It's cloudy! Duh!" _

_"Be careful, boy," the horseman said. "It's best to stay away from monsters." _

_"Huh?" Sasuke was going to ask more about it, but the centaur trotted away. _

Sasuke frowned. 'Was that a warning?' he had wondered as he tied up a particularly poisonous looking dragon and send sparks flying into the sky. Instead of waiting for the other wizards to arrive, Sasuke continued to head in the direction of the bright lights that he had spotted earlier. As he ran, he began to hear Naruto and Harry's voices.

"...I guess that makes sense... But how can it do magic?"

"Well, Sasuke's is made of some kind of snake bone. How does _that_ do mag—?" Sasuke came bursting out of the trees. "...Hi?" Naruto said, with a puzzled expression on his face.

"I saw something!" Sasuke said, recovering quickly from what felt like one of his few 'stupid moments'.

"Great," he replied cheerfully. "I see things too."

"That's not what I meant," he said hastily. "I saw some kind of huge red animal thing here! Like the Kyubi!"

"Oh...um, Kyubi?" Naruto said.

"Yeah. Huge fox? Killer aura? Destroyed half of the Leaf? Ring any bells?" he snapped.

"No," he said. "I meant, I didn't see any Kyubi. It's sorta dead, isn't it?" Sasuke stared suspiciously at Naruto, who frowned in return.

"Say..." Naruto said slowly, "...where's Cedric?" Sasuke paused, suddenly remembering the 'perfect Hufflepuff' guy.

Sasuke spun around and swore loudly, realizing that Cedric was no longer there.

"You _lost_ him?" Naruto hissed. Harry laughed, only to find himself pinned down by Sasuke's dark glare.

"Sorry... I just thought it was funny how you of all people lost your own partner," he said.

"And it is," Naruto said with a nod.

"You guys shut up."

"No."

They started heading back for Cedric. Naruto and Sasuke were running ahead, only slow enough so that Harry could only barely keep up.

"So what were you doing here anyway?" he asked Sasuke.

"…I thought I saw something," Sasuke mumbled.

"Ah, yeah, the Kyubi," Naruto said with a grin. "Seriously, Sasuke, that fox has been dead for how many years?"

"What's… Kumbi?" Harry panted from behind. Can't… breath! Damn, these guys run too fast.

"_Kyu_bi," Sasuke corrected. "It was a demon fox that nearly destroyed our home a while back."

Harry suddenly remembered his conversation with Dumbledore from a long time ago. Well _that_ was certainly something Dumbledore failed to mention.

Sasuke frowned at this unusual lack of curiosity from the Boy-Who-Lived. "You know something about it?"

"Well...yeah," Harry said. "It's a fox demon."

"That would be evident from the name and the information that I have already provided for you. Have you ever actually _heard_ of it?"

"Well, the _Monster Book of Monsters_—"

"The _what_?"

"The _Monster Book of Monsters_. It's a book that Hagrid had us buy for class on his first year of teaching. It mentioned something about a nine-tailed fox demon."

"...Do you still have it?" Sasuke asked.

"Er...no. It ran away."

"Don't be funny with me, Potter," Sasuke said threateningly.

"I'm not. It's a book that bites and stuff. You have to stroke is to stop it, but that only lasts for a certain amount of days. Mine ran away while I wasn't looking some time during the summer. It's probably somewhere at the Dursley's..."

"Oh..." Naruto said, his expression surprisingly unreadable.

"_You_ seem a bit relieved," Sasuke said suspiciously.

"Heh, I don't like the idea of a man-eating Monster Book roaming the Gryffindor tower," Naruto laughed. "But I do feel sorry for the Dursleys."

"AAAAAAAH!" a girl screamed.

"What was that?" Harry said.

"Probably Fleur," Sasuke said, not slowing down.

"Shouldn't we help her?"

"...Nah."

But, as they later realized when they ran into and tripped over the person, it was not Fleur. Heck, it wasn't even a girl!

"Oooow!" Naruto cried as he tripped over someone in mid-jump. "Kankurou! What the hell are you screaming like a girl for—aaaaah?-!"

As Kankurou tried to escape, Naruto scrambled back to his feet after spotting a parade of sand coming straight at them.

"…" Sasuke sighed as the tidal wave approached them at an impossible speed.

All three of them and Kankurou found themselves swept away in the currents.

"Oops," Naruto heard Gaara say snidely.

"Pbbt!" The blond spat out the sand and crawled out of it, shaking it out of his hair and his clothes. The sand he had been dunked was higher than he was tall. "You did that on purpose!" he said, pulling his partner out of the sand.

"Maybe," was his only reply.

Naruto frowned. That was almost a real joke. Now that he thought about it, they all really had changed. Not that he _wanted_ to think about it. It seemed everyone else was growing up so much faster than he was. They all had new techniques, more experience, better teamwork, and different skills. Naruto had a few new tactics and tricks up his sleeve, and that was it. Heck, even _Tenten_ had a whole arsenal of new weapons.

The only person who had less new techniques than he did was Gaara, but it wasn't as if the possibilities with his sand weren't almost endless. Not to mention, he was more "mature" and didn't kill anyone who merely glanced at him at the wrong time. He was almost friendlier and he had advanced from genin to kage in two and a half years. Becoming the Kazekage of the Sand was impressive enough by itself, but he was the youngest ever, not to mention he had advanced three ranks in about two years.

Naruto laughed, after spitting a few lungfuls of sand out.

"What?" Sasuke said, annoyed that his robes where now filled with about twenty pounds of sand.

"I'm glad I'm not dead..." he said vaguely. Otherwise, he'd never catch up with anyone.

"Considering the number of near-death experiences you've had, I'd be surprised if you weren't," Sasuke muttered.

"Say, where's Kankurou?" Naruto wondered. "I saw him just a minute ago!"

"Mmmmph!" Someone was screaming in the sand.

"Oh..." he said. "Let him out, Gaara."

"No."

"What'd he do now?"

"He's being stupid."

"You can't punish people for being stupid."

"What do you think I'm doing now?"

"While you two are arguing," Harry said thoughtfully, "we are getting attacked by a dragon!"

Oh. Oops. Sasuke pulled his sleeves back as dozens of snakes shot forward, grabbing the dragon and pulling it towards himself. The sand that they were all standing on became thousands of hands. And, of course, Naruto finished it off with a horde of his usual Kage Bunshins.

"...Twelve seconds," Harry said, sending sparklers up in the air. "Twelve bloody seconds! Forget mercenary work, you all ought to go into dragon-taming!"

"Hehe, that's an entertaining thoug—" Naruto said, but he paused. "_Mercenaries_? You called us mercenaries?"

"...Um...no?"

"Who told you?" Sasuke demanded. "Was it a friend? Or a teacher? Or—"

"It was Dumbledore," Harry said quickly.

"Oh...just him." The shinobi sighed as Kankurou began to crawl out of the sand.

Gaara looked at the KO'ed dragon, nudging it with his foot. "Heh, you haven't learned anything new since academy days, haven't you?"

"Nope," Naruto said, almost glumly. Well, it would have been 'glumly' if he wasn't in character. He was still as cheerful as ever anyway.

"Don't be stupid," Kankurou muttered, wiping sand off of his tongue. "He was being sarcastic."

"Well, it's true, isn't it?"

"Hm…thirty months training with that a Sannin, and you've learnt _nothing_? I'm not going to believe that."

"There was that blue thing you used in your chuunin exam," Gaara said.

"The Rasengan. I've known that for a long time," he said. "Since I was a genin."

"You've been a genin until just a few weeks ago," the Kazekage said.

"Well, I've known that since my first chuunin exam," he corrected.

"Then what about that super-Rasengan you nearly killed me with?" Sasuke said. "Don't tell me that you haven't made anything stronger than _that_."

"Well, I don't use that technique anymore anyway. If you knew me better, you might know that."

Ooh, low blow. "Well, nobody really knows you or whatever reason why you wouldn't use your powers to your every advantage."

"That's like asking why Gaara doesn't just take over the world. He can do that. Or at least take over the whole Wind Country, considering it's covered completely in sand," Naruto said.

"Does anyone find that these recent dragon attacks are getting really insignificant?" Kankurou commented thoughtfully. "I mean, they're so frequent, it really undermines the way we're supposed to get really scared when dragons attack."

All of a sudden, something small but scary came jumping out of the bushes.

"Assholes!" Neji growled, smacking the closest person in the head.

"Ow!" Kankurou yelped.

"Do I _look_ like some babysitter to you?-!" he said. "All three of you just keep on forgetting that you have a partner on this thing! And you left them all out in the forest where they could be eaten by spiders or lost!"

"I'll admit, if you ever babysat me, I'd grow up scarred," Naruto said.

"...Say, where are the champions _now_?" Sasuke wondered.

"Ah, you see, unlike you, I am a bit more responsible than all of you." Neji held up his wrist, showing them all a thick rope, tying him to...

...to Fleur, Cedric, and Viktor, who didn't look too enthusiastic about being led around the forest on a leash like children. ((...yes, in other words, if I ever had children, I'd keep them on a leash))

"It ees way past midnight," Fleur said, rubbing her eyes. "And it's been almost an hour since our time limit 'ad ended."

"Right!" Naruto said. "We're finished! How many dragons have we caught?"

"Two," Gaara said.

"Ven?"

"You didn't know."

"You took out a dragon vile I vos unavare oof it?"

"…"

"Next?"

"I only got one," Sasuke said.

"Hah! I beat you! I got two!" Naruto said triumphantly.

"I beat you both," Neji said smugly. "Three."

"One," Kankurou said.

"That's...nine dragons," Naruto said. "Nine out of ten dragons."

"Are you sure there are only ten?" Neji asked. "How do you know that?"

"It's one dragon per species that we got here. There are ten species of them in the world, according to _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_. So we're missing one."

A dragon roaming in the Forbidden Forest... They shuddered.

"We'll leave finding the last one for the supposed experts who brought them in and let them escape in the first place," Gaara said. "In any case, you guys are probably tired."

"Yeah, in celebration of this supposedly great feat, we shall eat, drink, and Harry can have a break from training!" Naruto said with a grin on his face.

"Yes!"

"And then after that, we're working your ass off, so prepare to die," Sasuke said.

"Damn you all!"

* * *

(1) Also, in addition to all my thoughts about Neji's eyes, I'm making up this 'rule'. Or ability. Changing his ability, I guess. When the veins in Neji's forehead appear, it shows that he's searching for chakra. When the white pupils in his eyes instead turn grayish and look as if he's got cracks in them, he's changing the distance at which he sees and can now see through physical objects. So veins _and_ grayish white eyes mean he's looking for chakra at all distances.  
(2) You know those security laser detecting thingies that you always see in high-security areas in movies? With the red lasers that go off when you walk through them? Yeah, like that. I'm pretty sure that plenty of people came up with this idea, so it's probably a bit Mary-Suish... grrr... In any case, I like Kankurou a lot because, well, strings can do a lot of things. Hence, Madoka. They both have threads, only hers are solid. Otherwise, there's not much difference.  
(3) Arania Exumai--From the Latin "aranea" (spider) and "exuo" (to lay aside). Knocks back spiders. Harry used this spell to defend himself and Ron from the spiders when they met Aragog in the Forbidden Forest in the _movie_.  
(4) You know Neji's chakra needles thing? What he used to cut Kidoumaru's webs? Yeah, that.  
(5) Hakke Hyaku Nijūhachi Shō, Eight Trigrams One Hundred Twenty-Eight Palms (a.k.a. "Divination Field: or Divine One Hundred-Twenty Eight Strikes")—Hakke Hyaku Nijūhachi Shō is an advancement of the Hakke Rokujūyon Shō (Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms). Neji used it to protect himself from the Amagumo (Rain of Spiders) released from Kidōmaru's Spider Summoning. He would strike each of the special 64 Tenketsu/chakra holes two times when directed at a single, humanoid opponent, an even more devastating blow than the Sixty-Four Palms. It's faster than the Sixty-Four Palms, making it even more dangerous.

* * *

**My Thinking Corner**

Yeah, yeah, Neji VS Spiders part two is a bit corny. I just wanted to do something for irony's sake. It didn't feel too good writing it, but I tried. In case you haven't noticed, I'm a great fan of irony. You know, the Rita-Shino bug reporters, the alleged "Snape-Anko" pairing (I'm still not sure as to how the heck I'm going to pull that off without gagging myself to death on my tongue... but now that I've been plotting later events... I think I've figured something out...), and, well, the entire crossover-ness of this fic!

And okay, so yeah, I know, many of you are like, "Aren't the ninja being a bit showy with their techniques?" Yes, they used a technique in front of the dragon keepers and Harry. Now, first, the dragon-keepers-see-jutsus issue: I've already addressed that issue. It's also important for later parts of my fics. Well... ah... nevermind, actually, I won't. But to everyone who's going: "WTF are you stupid? They just 'ruined' their secret!" Well, Naruto is the only one behind times. He realizes that later and freaks out. But you remember in the Ministry of Magic? They've got a special floor (level three) dedicated certain departments in the MoM: the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad; the Invisibility task force (okay, I make that up in my head; I think, 'How the heck do they get people to not notice people running into walls at Platform 9 3/4 and the entrance of St. Mungos and the entrance of MoM? It'd be totally awesome to have a crew like that!). So, here's a few jobs in the Ministry that I have read in the fifth book and made up myself.

**Invisibility Task Force** (it seems logical to have this, since this group casts various forms of invisibility magic to hide magical places and creatures from Muggle eyes.  
**Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee  
Obliviator Headquarters**

In short, Ino is the entire group's Accidental Magical Reversal one-woman squad. For more information...keep reading my fics. You won't realize it any time soon though.

Anyway, I've been feeling really...'bleh' about my writing lately. Summer's started. I guess I'm just depressed. Should've worked harder in the school year because I think I failed a final exam. Spanish. Daaaaamn! aaAaaaaaah! Okay, brief break down is over. I wanted to get the chapter out on May 25. That was the last day of school. And my birthday. But it was also my last day of finals, so I was exhausted. I'm still feeling tired, but that might be because I haven't been sleeping much. I've been trying to write notes for the fic, but I just haven't been able to write really detailed anything recently. I started working on the FMAHP crossover fic... Third chapter. Then I actually started writing this chapter again. About time, if I ask myself.

Anyway, on my birthday, I was so out of it, when my sister told me to put my things in her trunk, I opened the trunk, and a whole bunch of balloons came out and attacked me! The first one that I saw was: "It's a girl!" And I'm thinking: I'm NOT pregnant. Impossible! I can't possibly get pregnant! So I look at her and I'm like: …You're PREGNANT? And then I see the other balloons and they all say, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" So I look at her friend who is also in the car and I'm like: It's your birthday…? And then… "OH CRAP!" It was MY birthday. The "It's a girl!" balloon didn't make any sense, so I got really confused. I was like, "…WHAT?"

Anyway, I later got a cookie for my birthday. My mother had a plastic box thing of it. It was really good. She gave me one. And then gave the rest away to a lady who worked in our office. That really annoyed me. I'm going to make a note of that to myself, and on her birthday, I'm going to get her a box of cookies, give her one, and take the rest back and give it to my friends at school. Bitch. Doooon't taaaake my coooooookiiiieeeess... Raaaaaarh!

((Oh, and note to my betas: I know I didn't make much of Harry's summons. I didn't want to make a big deal of it, for certain reasons. It's like Vikki, I guess. They're useless for now, but later, they'll do something. And remind me to delete this note later before I post it when you reply. Otherwise, I'll forget.))

Also, the next chapter will be based mainly on just pranks and a bit of foreshadowing if you can catch it. Very little, very subtle. Of course, with my tendency to re-write my work, I'll probably end up forgetting to add the tiny details in here anyway.

Also, if anyone is a real Sailor Moon fan, I really suggest you read Sailor Wars: The Moon Chapter, written by the not-quite-god-but-should-be-worshiped-like-one... RyougaZell! (bows to you) You saaaaved me!

* * *

Dual rasengan the great one: Thanks, I was staying up all night to think up of explanations as to why Neji can see everything. As for the pervert Hinata... that could be done. But only in passing. Like, someone does something to give her a temporary split personality. But ONLY temporary. That'd be just too weird. And then I'll say, like, Hinata caught the Inner Sakura and she has become the Inner Hinata. As for the chibi bunshins...sorry, but it just doesn't sound...painful enough. Like the Naruchimaru. I think I'll do something like that though. Thanks. And as for the "I felt up Tenten" part. Well...Naruto's into pranks, not suicide.  
randomgirl: you got the small part right. And I'm glad you liked the Naruchimaru and the long chapters. I think the Naruchimaru attack may have been my most popular review topic. XD  
chidori: thanks!  
Anonymous: You _really_ liked Chapter 24? _Really_ really? Oh. Well thanks! And this was all actually just a reason to get them fighting. I don't really have too much experience when it comes to fight scenes, so I wanted to sorta practice that before I ruin the Tasks, because things are going to happen. And yes, Rita _is_ more experienced. Both Rita and Shino are really good... 'bug spies', but Rita's got more hands-on experience when it comes to verbally beating the crap of somebody. Well, if it's the women who are sly and cunning (slytherin!-!-!) and the guys who are bold (Gryffindor!-!-! weird coincidence, eh?), then I say...THE TRANVESTITES ARE THE WORST! Like Haku. Or the Makotos. Or Kenshin. Okay, okay, I'm just kidding. Himura Kenshin is awesome! Don't kill me... But he _is_ kinda girly...And for the Basilisk summon thing... interesting, I didn't think of that. Oh, and you didn't miss any contract thing. All I said was that Harry signed something and that no one was sure of what it was.  
Anonomys: I always thought of Naruto's chakra more like trying to channel an ocean out of a funnel, but the more people-harder-to-control makes better sense. Smart thinking, you crazy pyro. And the "by the way...(bleeeeeeep)...I'm pretty sure it's going to be extremely boring without them right?" comment...OF COURSE. Did you seriously think I could fit all of my plans in this one? ((didn't want to give it all away to the lazier readers. Y'all wanna know what the heck I'm talking about, then read the review yourself.)) And, as you've read, the summon had already been chosen, but...Bahamut does look a bit dragon-ish, right? And I don't think Tsunade would save me. She'd probably kill me for calling her package "kadonkadonks". Yes, I'm really immature. 


	26. Chapter 26

Hmm, yeah, I don't think I can pull of an AnkoXSevi right now... I think they'll just be friends for now. I just keep getting weird chills whenever I think about it, but that might be because I'm the only person who knows exactly what's going to happen in the future. The distant future, anyway.

Chapter 26: A Brief Intermission  
_Fun and Games_

ICU...: What I learned that the Champ Trio have learned  
--I have an ability to see the immediate future or something like that and I am a martial arts expert  
--Gaara's gourd is made of sand spelled to move  
--I can use the Imperious Curse and used it to make one spider fight another  
--Sasuke has a fire-breath technique  
--Naruto has no secrets to speak of  
Comments anyone?  
G.U.N.: What do you mean I have NO SECRETS! I have secrets! I like planting things! I like plants! No one knew that! That's a secret! Right?  
TheGeniusSays: If they think that, let them believe it. Close enough to the truth, but not anything damning. You could mention in passing how the Hyugas are mainly martial artists. I've had Chouji research things. He'll send you a print-out of various martial arts styles wàijiā. which is a variation of nei chia. Not that I expect you to know what either are. Because I don't. But he mentioned in a letter how it seems similar to your style of fighting. You're 'ability to see the immediate future' could be explained through experience in the 'martial arts'. For instance, you are so adept at this style of fighting and meditating and other martial artsy stuff that you can hear things very well and predict an opponent's next move.  
SuperFangirl: Why don't you just make another two parchments and send it to Gai and Lee and Chouji?  
TheGeniusSays: Too troublesome. Too much work. Anyway, the parchments won't work too long if left out of a magical environment. They run on magic. If you try to use it, it'll only last about an hour until you have to "recharge" it somewhere magical again.  
God: How the heck do you come up with these things?  
Holier-than-thou: Well, not everyone's as stupid as you.  
God: Shut up, Uchiha!  
Holier-than-thou: Dogbreath!  
God: Mr. Holier-than-though!  
Holier-than-thou: Can't argue with that.  
G.U.N.: I'm feeling oddly left out...  
God: Because I'm better than you.  
G.U.N.: No, you aren't!  
God: Yes I am! Because I am GOD.  
Valentine: Why is it "God" anyway?  
God: Don't you know? God is dog spelled backwards! I AM GOD!  
G.U.N.: No, you're a BACKWARDS god! You're the devil!  
ICanCrow: lol  
Ama1010: What's Lol? Lawl? Loll? Lull?  
ICanCrow: Nvm.  
Ama1010: Huh?  
InTheSun: (pause) Um...Sasuke's fire techniques could be done with a wand. The Durmstrang students did it. (pause) But it was a bit smaller. (pause)  
Holier-than-thou: Yeah, those f---ing wannabes. Hey, why the h--- can't I curse?  
Valentine: You have a dirty mouth so I asked shika to undo it.  
Holier-than-thou: INO  
Valentine: Haha.  
TheGeniusSays: Anyway, for Gaara's sand, we'll just say he spelled it to protect him. A lot. Just... don't give details.  
G.U.N.: Hey, is Shino reading this? Hey SHINO! SHINO! SHINOSHINOSHINOSHINO! Are you there? If you are, say something!  
Kikaichu: …  
G.U.N.: There ya go!  
Kikaichu: Also, I know what you and Kiba are doing and I suggest you stop it. Or at least don't get me involved.  
G.U.N.: Oh? What ever are you talking about?  
**Kikaichu is away.**  
G.U.N.: What do you mean you're away?  
**Auto response from Kikaichu**: Idiot(s). When it says "Kikaichu is away", it means I am _not _here. Or I'm not listening.  
ICU...: …  
G.U.N.: …  
SuperFangirl: …  
God: …  
Holier-than-thou: …  
Valentine: …  
ICanCrow: …  
Ama1010: …  
InTheSun: …  
TheGeniusSays: ...I thought I cancelled the Away Message feature...?

* * *

((sorry people, I couldn't help it... besides, I wanted you all to see what their 'names' were! And I also wanted to get it down so I didn't forget it later...)) 

"I can't believe they just took down nine dragons just like that!" Cedric hissed to Fleur for the umpteenth time as the three official Champions briskly walked down the hall.

"And what ees worse ees zat zey are training him!" Fleur declared.

"Really?"

"It makes sense now!" she said and a low voice. "Zey really do wont to win ze Galleons, and zey split it amongst themselves. Wiz 'arry! Zey are training 'arry to 'elp 'im win!"

"...Okay, I got 'Wizardry SARS are training Harry to Alps in whim'," Cedric said slowly.

"Potter is been trained for ze Tournament!"

"_Oh_, well why didn't you say so before?"

"Ugh, you insufferable little 'Ogwarts boy!"

"And you pretty little French girl!"

Fleur sighed, rubbing her forehead. "We can_ not _let zem win against us! Zis is an outrage...!"

"You know what we have to do, right...?" Cedric asked her suggestively.

"Follow them until they cave in and let us go too?" Fleur asked.

"Exactly."

Viktor, who had been following them silently for a while, sighed as the two made blackmail plans in a vain attempt to force the Japanese students to comply with their wishes. He felt a bit guilty, having known about Harry's training all along.

* * *

Viktor sulked as they headed for the green snake table where most of the shinobi now sat. If he got kicked out of this part of the table... would they force him to sit with the pale blond one and the two hulking baboon-like boys? He noticed that some of them were missing when Fleur and Cedric arrived at the table together. 

"You 'ave been training 'arry Potter! All of you 'ave been planning zis from ze start!"

"But we're willing to overlook this," Cedric piped up amiably. "If you just show us what it's like."

"What's what like?" Gaara asked bluntly.

"Training him! What you're training him _in_. And, uh... maybe if you'd show us too?" he said, faltering under Gaara's eyes.

"Why would I know what they're training him? I never go," Gaara said, playing with his food. He had no idea what it was, but it was salty and he liked it. "Personally, it's not very interesting. I've seen one fight, and Harry got his ass kicked. Though I hear he's putting up more of a fight before he goes down." He frowned. "Still, if you three want to train, probably only for a night, you'll have to asked Sasuke and Neji for permission, and then... my sister's friend Shikamaru for the date and the time. Yeah, if there's any fault that we have, it's our scheduling skills. We have none."

"Not to mention our tendency to look down on others and think they are below us," Shikamaru said blithely as he walked over to the table late with Temari. Ino crept into the Great Hall late as well. And, as usual, the moment Sasuke sat at the table, a slight gloom befell everyone there, so his presence couldn't exactly easily be ignored. "So what are you guys talking about? How to kill us in our sleep?"

"What the _hell _have you been doing with _my sister_?" Gaara said, completely ignoring Shikamaru's first question.

"Double date in the girls bathroom," Shikamaru said with a smirk. Gaara glared at him. "STUDY DATES! _Study dates_ in the _library_! I was kidding!" he amended quickly, backing away.

"We wont to speak to you about 'arry's training," Fleur said swiftly to Sasuke as he seated himself at the table. "It ees unfair zat our own assistants are 'elping ze enemy! We will see just exactly wot it ees zat you are doing wiz 'arry—"

"Fine," Sasuke said, interrupting her in mid-rant.

"Excusez moi?"

"I said 'fine'. Okay. But only for one. Shikamaru, when are we meeting next?"

"In three days," Shikamaru said.

"Heh, Friday the thirteenth," Kankurou said. Everyone looked at him. "What? I was just saying it's a coincidence! I—Shino, what the heck are you doing?"

The Aburame seemed to glance up at Kankurou from the ground. He had dropped a spoon five minutes ago and was _really _taking his time picking it up.

"I'm picking up my spoon," he said quietly. "Can't you tell?"

"...Riiight..." Kankurou turned around back to the table to eat his breakfast when something wet and sticky smacked the back of his head. Gaah! "Porridge?"

He glared at the people behind him but... they were just eating their food, not even noticing this. Shino then started crawling away. And then Kankurou remembered the previous night's conversation and realized just who was up with that. '...I know what you and Kiba are doing..."

He glared at the Gryffindor table where Naruto, Kiba, and the others sat. Naruto snickered. Kiba rolled his eyes as if he could do better. Sasuke frowned and slid to the seat next to him as egg yolk fell from the sky and landed in the seat he previously sat. Soon, all types of breakfast began falling from the clear morning sky/ceiling.

"That's it!" Kankurou said. "It's war."

Naruto froze at the crazed look in Kankurou's eye. The twitch in the eye must have been hereditary. Probably from the father. Naruto had heard the previous Kazekage was a nut job. Kankurou casually flicked his hand, and bowls went flying straight at the middle of the Gryffindor table.

"...What the bloody hell was that?-!" Hermione screeched.

Everyone stared at her.

"Did you just curse, Her—?" Ron asked.

"_No_," she said firmly, wiping food from her face. "But...um... where did that come from in the first place?-!"

They glared at the Slytherin table, where Kankurou was innocently stuffing his face and others were looking down sulkily at their now empty plates. They saw Sasuke whack the back of Kankurou's head. There was a feeling of foreboding as Naruto waved his wand and...

More food flew.

"That's it!" Sasuke said, falling out of his chair as he jumped away. Fleur, Cedric, and Viktor began to quietly leave the area. "It's war!"

"Did they not realize what we've been doing so far? It's been war for the last five minutes!" Kiba exclaimed to Naruto.

"Only it's just not exactly just Gryffindor versus Slytherin," he replied.

"We really should put an end to this food fight _before it _gets too big to stop," Snape said, getting up from his seat as the students below them began to fling food madly at each other..

"Yes," Anko said, "but instead, what we _will _do is just point and _laugh_. No. _No_, Sevi. _You _might want to stop this, but _we_ don't want any kid cursed with his feet pinned to the floor. Just sit back, relax, and watch it all work out by itsel—"

"YOU STUPID BASTARDS!" they heard Neji roar. "WHOEVER THREW THE SYRUP PITCHER SHIT HAD BETTER FALL OVER AND DIE NOW BECAUSE ONCE I FIND YOUR SORRY ASS, YOU'RE—"

"...Or, I suppose we'll just watch Hyuga Neji kill everyone within striking distance," Anko said, sweatdropping.

"Just try to top _this,_" Kiba sneered to Naruto under the table. "Full-blown chaos? Let's see _you_ do it now." The Ravenclaw table erupted into feathers, turning into birds of all kinds.

"And that's only one of four houses so far..." Naruto said with a grin.

"Damn you, Uzumaki!" he laughed. Something wet and slimy landed in his ear. "DAMN YOU TOO, TEMARI! And...AND NOT YOU TOO, GAAAARA!" He grabbed Shino who was crawling away and used his coat to shield him from.

"…" Shino glared at them both from behind his sunglasses as hordes of Hufflepuff girls swarmed and swept him away, since all Ravenclaws were now winged birds and Gryffindor and Slytherin's were at full-out war. "I'll get you _both_...!" he whispered loudly over the shrieks and squeals.

And thus, the prank wars officially begun.

* * *

Shino fumed silently as he wrote on the parchment. He had _known_ this was coming. He actually read their plans! He had already memorized it, though somewhere in the back of his mind where the bugs weren't sleeping, he vaguely wondered where it was... 

THE RULES OF THE GAME:  
1) Draw straws to see who starts.  
2) Start with one prank. Classified under:  
a. Shinobi  
b. Hogwarts  
c. Durmstrang  
d. Beauxbatons  
One chooses a, b, c, d, and/or e. The other must perform a prank of the same magnitude and letter as the previous.  
3) Hogsmeade is neutral land. Anyone anywhere else is free game.  
4) Pranksters may prank one another, but prepare for un-divine retribution.  
5) The prankster unable to match the chooser's prank's letter loses. Or if caught and unpunished. For more specific rules, see handbook.

Shino put the quill away and rolled up the parchment, sending it away with the Witch Weekly owl when he paused. He suddenly sat up and began rummaging throughout his bags. Now that he thought about it... he had lost both the list and—

Outside of the library, he heard Fred and George cackling about the greatest prank war in existence. Shino choked and slowly crept away. This was going to be the incident that no one would hear about. Ever.

* * *

Currently unaware of their newer rivals, Naruto and Kiba continued to spread their cheer—in other words, chaos—both determined not to be outdone by the other. Unfortunately for quite a few Hogwarts students, the walls of Hogwarts was no longer a safe haven for anyone. 

Later that day, the Slytherin table had eaten yet another hexed meal and like the Ravenclaws, were turned into their respective symbol. Ravenclaws became birds, Slytherins became snakes, and, at dinner, Gryffindors became cats. And, the next morning at breakfast, Hufflepuffs became...what the hell?

Little pink things with huge green eyes and a spherical body.

"Jigglypuff...?" Shikamaru said, an eye twitching. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or not at the ridiculous sight.

"What the bloody hell is this?" Ron cried, waking up in the morning and looking in the mirror to find doodlings on his face. Like Emo glasses. Oddly enough, the emo glasses resembled Harry's, but that really was completely a coincidence. But what drew more attention was the blaring billboard-like sign behind him, reading:

**RON THE EMO**—"I'M SAD BECAUSE I SUCK! AND BIRDS ARE DYING!" ((yeah... i don't have much of an opinion of emos... the 'birds are dying' is a part of a joke between me and some friends. just google the words: like birds are dying. You will quickly find the richest, most pathetic, annoying emo girl in the... in the history of rich pathetic annoying emo girls...)) 

Harry snickered at this new development. Even when the entire Gryffindor table was pranked, Harry was relatively safe. Though it wasn't public knowledge, as he had been locked in the bathroom at this time. In any case, aside from the brief morning prank on Ron that lasted all day long, nothing else happened. This was probably after Naruto and Kiba realized the mistake of publicly pranking Ron. It seemed that the Weasley twins' brothers were off-limits when Naruto and Kiba were subject to huge animal ears.

Little did they know that the trick was not in retribution of Ron's prank but actually the fact that the Weasleys' were now getting very interested in this little contest.

"It's your choice," Naruto said to Kiba. "What now?"

"Hm...I say 'b' again," Kiba said. "I'd hate to start some international mess, messing with Karkaroff and Maxime. She's huge and he's ugly. Anyway...I say Malfoy and Ron. We still hadn't finished it."

"No, you had Ron, I had Malfoy. I've got Malfoy," Naruto said with a grin on his face.

"...Okay, I'm confused, so we'll just get them both _one _more time," he said.

"I'm confused too, why both again?"

"...Who cares? We stopped listening to the rules a while ago."

"The rules were crap anyway..."

Naruto snickered. "Potions... oh, you haven't seen Malfoy yet. It's _hilarious_ and it _won't_ come off."

Kiba ran to class, enthusiastic for the first time, to see what the blond genius had done to Malfoy. Tripping over his feet as he entered, he choked at the sight of the Malfoy heir. It seemed that Naruto had borrowed Kiba's Un-scourgify-able ink and had completely doused the Malfoy boy in it, covering him head to toe in black ink. But what was more attention-grabbing was the huge sign behind him. It was similar to the large sign that Kiba had made for Ron, but much more... _blaring_. Daring, blaring... almost the same thing, right? It had lightbulbs behind him and neon lights. The phrases on the sign would change every once in a while, ranging from: "I love your ass, let me kiss it", to the all-time low, "Incest has rotten my brains out. T-R-U-T-H, my anti-incest." (1) After another moment, it read one of Naruto's favorite phrases:

PANSY BITCH

"Heh, that's really amateurish," Kiba said. "I've got a prank for them both."

"Both as in who and who?"

"Ron and Malfoy."

"Isn't Ron off-limits? We don't want the twins getting involved with this..." Naruto said.

"If we don't get caught we won't get caught," he snickered. "Anyway, I had Anko change the seating arrangement and we will be at the perfect angle to execute our plans!"

"_Your _plan. I'm not getting involved with this one," the blond said, shaking his head.

"Well then I win! The rules—"

"Screw the rules," Naruto muttered. "I'm _confused_."

"Fine, new arrangements. I prank one, you prank one. Until we run out of original ideas."

"That's not what it was before?"

"…"

Anko strode into the room with the Potions Master following not too far behind her.

"Mitarashi, what do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

"Just, uh, looking at the seating arrangements..." she said.

"...Okay, what did you do, and what are you up to no?"

"Aw, Sevi-poo, how could you say such a thing...!" Anko said. "I'm not planning for world domination!"

"That's not funny," he said quickly.

"The 'world domination part', you mean?" she asked him. "Well _I_ thought it was..."

"No, the part where you called me...the part where you twisted, mutilated, and completely destroyed my name," he said bluntly.

"Oh, you mean the 'Sevi-poo'? I like that name. I like Severus. It's so fun to play with! Like, I can make 'Sevi-poo', Sev, Sevi, Sev'ru—"

"Another name, and I'll have your tongue in a potion."

"And I thought that you said that any potion that used a tongue of mine will be ruined and turned to poison."

"Well I wouldn't really mind. After I tear that tongue out of your head and used it to make a faulty potion that turns to a poison, I'll probably feed it to you in your food."

"Ah, the horror," Anko said, carelessly shrugging off this slightly disturbed idea. "Please don't do that to me, Sevi-poo..."

"Stop _calling_ me that."

"Oh, come on, the other teachers just love it."

"You told them?"

"Not only that, but they call you that behind your back now."

"Oh joy..."

"Alright, kiddos!" Anko said, marching to the front of the classroom. "We've got new seating arrangements for today! Just trying something out..."

Students stared at Anko and Severus with a mixture of surprise and horror. Anko stared right back at Draco, but not because he wasn't listening to her, but because the bright lights on his magical billboard had distracted her, along with the words, "MY FATHER WAS A MONKEY WHO HUMPED THE WRONG DEAD WHORE." She coughed and fell behind the desk, where the students could hear wild cackling. Moments later, she got back up to her feet, wiping tears from her eyes.

"C'mon you losers, move NOW!" People jumped from their seats and began to collect their things for the move.

"Okay," she said, nodding in satisfaction. "On the front row will be Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy. Then Ron Weasley and Morrisa Anahid. Next is Naruto Uzumaki and Kiba Inuzuka. Harry Potter and Shino Aburame..." ((etc... I do NOT feel like going through the whole class.))

"Great," Anko said, clapping her hands together joyfully. "Now that you idiots finally caught on to the changes that...there are some changes—"

"Why are _you_ taking over the class?" Malfoy demanded.

"Because I won," she said smugly.

"...Won what?"

"Chess," she answered curtly. Huh? "Now we'll be making the, um...uh...hold on... we'll be practicing the Comperamo Love Potion with each other." Harry looked at Shino and scooted his chair away from the Aburame, and many students in the class did likewise. "Anyone know what it is?"

"It'll help the drinker realize what his or her ideal partner would be," Hermione answered.

"Exacto mundo, Miss Grant," Anko said. "Now, all of you, you'll need the ingredients listed on the board. Get them from the potions ingredients-cabinet thingie. Well? GET MOVING!"

Students immediately got back to their feet and began rushing for the potions cabinet. The potion wasn't really too hard or complicated. While Anko was teaching, the classroom was nothing short of chaotic and messy. She was constantly cleaning up messes with some type of magical mess remover and was always shouting at random kids who ran around. Compared to Snape's straight-laced, painfully precise, and somewhat frightening potions class, Anko's was, well, fun. Neville had made a potion of the right color, if not hue, and even Crabbe and Goyle had results resembling some type of mucky liquid.

"Aah, crud, time's up, time's up!" Anko announced. "If you haven't finished already, then get through this really, really fast. But make sure you do _exactly_ what's on the board. If you can't finish in five minutes, then just share the potion with someone else."

"Wait, we're taking our own potions?" Malfoy asked, looking horrified. "What if we... what if we poison ourselves?"

"If you do it right, you won't die," Anko said. She grinned devilishly. "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, right?"

"..." The class stared at her in horror.

"Don't worry, don't worry," she said. "I've looked over a majority of your potions and I made a list of those who must _not_ drink their own potions. Read on the board. If your name is on it, you won't get any credit for it. Write down all details on your potion, and write on a parchment on what you did wrong. Might want to save a sample and start looking through it now. Doesn't matter how long the paper is as long as you get it right. It could be an inch for all I care. Everyone finished? Almost finished? Alright, so save your potion and have maybe a little bit to drink yourself. If you didn't get it right this time and you _want_ to figure out what kind of person you'd prefer the most, then I have samples in the back for you to drink. Brewed it myself, I did... I'm so awesome..."

"_You_ brewed it?" Malfoy said incredulously. "Really?" He looked at Professor Snape for confirmation of this phenomenon.

"Surprisingly...yes," he muttered. "She did."

"Amazing what idiots could do, isn't it?" Kiba asked casually as he pulled his wand out of his sleeves.

"You...you know, it's going to be hard at this angle," Naruto said, watching Ron drink the potion next to his surly looking Slytherin. The girl glared at him.

"...Anyway," Malfoy said to Hermione, glaring at her as he did so but busy talking as a result of the potion, "I like an Asian girl...Maybe Japanese."

"...What?" Naruto said. "What did he say?"

"Apparently, he wants an Asian girl," Kiba said. "So what?"

"Kiba. _We're_ Japanese. I think."

"We are? Oh yeah... well okay, but we're not girls. Well, I'm not, but your Sexy no jutsu is. But why does that matter?"

"That asshole better not hit on Hi—any of _us_! ...And by that, I mean Sakura or Tenten or Hinata or Temari and stuff!"

"...But not those fake Japanese here, with the obviously fake, dyed hair and freakishly colored eyes, but a _real_ one," he continued. ("Okay," Kiba muttered, "_now_ I'm starting to feel insulted.") "Pureblood, of course, but she has to be smart, pretty, a tad bit defenseless, but not too spineless—actually, maybe a bit _spunky_, as you Gryffindors would put it. Just for a decent conversation every so often. And the reason why she _should_ be Asian is that I want that extremely silky hair for the children as well. My hair is recessive, so if I marry a girl with bad hair, odds are my children would have bad hair as well, and it's just not right for a _Malfoy_ to have bad hair. And pretty eyes. I want her to have pretty eyes. Delicate, graceful, and polite..." he continued on for a while. Everyone within hearing range sweatdropped.

"In other words," Hermione said, rolling her eyes, "_not_ Pansy. Or even the majority of the Slytherin girls."

"Shut up, Granger."

"That description sounds a lot like Hinata," Naruto growled.

"Nah, Hinata's eyes are nice looking," Kiba said, "but they scare Malfoy."

"So true," he said, glowering at the Malfoy as Kiba finally started to aim at Malfoy and Ron, with his wand at an angle. He muttered an incantation under his breath, but to his horror...

The potion Ron drank began to take effect as he began to describe the girl. "I want a girl with big—augh!" Morrisa Anahid, the angry looking Slytherin girl whom he had been partnered with, socked him in the face and he fell backwards. The spell flew, though invisible, and Anko tripped, as if something struck her in the back of the head.

"OW!" she cried, grabbing Severus Snape's arm to avoid collision with the ground. "WHO HIT ME, EH? ASSHOLES! THIS IS AN EASY CLASS AND ONE OF YOU HAVE THE NERVE _HIT_ ME?-!"

Kiba and Naruto froze in their seats. All chattering and movement in the classroom ceased.

"Nobody struck you," Snape said in a cool voice. "It was probably some sort of spell..."

"Alright, who spelled me! Tell me so I can maim you!"

"Your skills of persuasion astound me," he said.

"I astound _myself_ sometimes," she said airily.

"Alright, who cursed Mita—?" Professor Snape said to the classroom, stepping forward to glower menacingly at each student when he stopped dead in his tracks, feeling the spell take place. He struggled to take a step forward, and ended up pulling Anko after him.

"…" Anko and Snape stared at each other in horror as they realized just what was going on.

"Oh. Fucking. No," she whispered, looking as if she had just seen a ghost. A scary ghost, not the weird 'Caspers' of Hogwarts. "This is _so_ not happening. No to me... You've gotta be kidding me..."

To test out their silent hypotheses, they walked in opposite directions and found themselves unable to move more than about fifteen feet from each other.

"I'M IN HEEEEELL!" Anko cried, clutching her head as she freaked out.

"When I find the culprit, I shall maim and castrate him. Or her."

"Ah, I knew it," Anko said, nodding to her self, seeming to have already recovered from her moment of fear. "Slytherin girls have testicles."

"Shut up, Mitarashi," he said, smacking the back of her head.

"Ow! Well you just _admitted_ it!" she whined, clutching her head. Kiba and Naruto traded nervous glances, and nodded in a silent agreement with one another. They would never _ever _speak of this incident ever again.

"Let's not try that again..." Naruto whispered.

"No kidding," Kiba muttered as the bell rang. Students immediately began to rush out as fast as they could. Anko tried to jump over the desk and block the doorway, but she fell face flat on the floor with Snape stumbling behind her, having not expected her sudden lunging. They exchanged more horrified glances with one another, and wondered just how long they were going to have to spend like this...

* * *

Naruto and Kiba ran out of the room with the other shinobi following close behind them. 

"Okay," Naruto said firmly, I think we ought to get organized with our pranks."

"If your pranks get any more sophisticated, the world is doomed," Sasuke muttered under his breath.

* * *

"Oh my god!" Sakura said to Gaara at lunch that day. "Did you hear?" 

"I heard a lot of things today," he said plainly. "You'll have to be more specific."

"Neji and Tenten broke up!" she said to him. "It was...it was the loudest, more horrifying break-up in the entire history of break-ups! And now, Neji's acting all weird about it!"

Kiba and Naruto, who had been plotting their next schemes, froze, hearing this.

"What?" Naruto said nervously.

"Neji. And. Tenten. Broke. Up."

Naruto and Kiba faced each other, pale in the face. "Kiba...didn't we have anything planned for Neji? Like, a surprise...something? A surprise _anything_?"

"His tea..." Kiba said, his voice cracking up in sadness.

"His hair..." Naruto said.

"We need to stop our pranks!" he hissed. "Come on—"

A boy at the Ravenclaw table spat out his tea in disgust. "Augh, what the hell is this?" he cried.

"Who's that...? Wait, what happened?" Kiba moved to the side a bit to see the boy's pale eyes.

"Say, Kiba, what did _you_ do to him?"

"A Hyuga is hard to fool. I only switched the salt and the sugar in his tea," he mumbled under his breath. "You?"

"...I cut his hair."

Kiba stared at Naruto. And then he went back to looking at that guy. His shoulder-length hair rendered him almost unrecognizable, but those pale eyes, the clean robes, and _veins popping out of his head_. There was no longer any doubt. This angry Ravenclaw was, indeed, Neji.

"Naruto...that's cruel. In this state... no one is cruel enough to do _that_ to a _Hyuga_ in his time of greatest pain..." Kiba said. "You'd have to be cruel... to be cold-hearted... to be merciless... or incredibly, completely stupid and suicidal."

Neji spun around, as if he knew just who did this to him. And he did. Slowly, he headed towards Naruto and Kiba in an intimidating manner.

"We need to run," they said at the same time. They began to run out of the Great Hall away from the Hyuga who had finally lost his marbles when they slipped on sand and found themselves at the feet of a furious Kazekage. Luckily, it was not they who had angered him.

"Shi...no..." he said in an eerie voice that sounded almost as if it had a tinge of Shukaku in it. "Where...are...you...?" The pranksters clutched each other in fear at the mere sound of his voice. Gaara dropped the magazine in his hand and zoomed away with a dark aura trailing behind him, in search of his now most hated enemy.

Picking up the magazine as they ran, Naruto and Kiba skimmed through the Witch Weekly article.

**Gaara Sabaku: Entrepreneur Extraordinaire  
**_Article written by: Trump Card _

_Gaara Sabaku, a wealthy young man, has high ambitions indeed. He owns a few well-off stores in his home country and is now making big plans here in Europe, starting in Hogsmeade, one of the few wizard-ruled villages in the west, nearby the school he currently attends, Hogwarts. He has recently brought two of his most productive workers and an experienced translator over from his village and business is booming for "Onaji Ana No Mujina: Partners in Crime". _

_Of course, even the wealthiest of businessmen look forward to sharing time, amongst other things, with an attractive young woman. Information regarding his likes, dislikes, blood type, and other fun fan-facts about this fifteen year-old millionaire shall be provided on page 16 under the list of 'Top 15 Eligible (FILTHY RICH) Bachelors of the Wizarding World', as well as his current address and location at the bottom of the page. _

Naruto paused in his flight from Neji. "You know what this means, right?" he said to Kiba.

"...I don't want to," he shuddered.

"If Shino survives Gaara, you're next. _You're_ the one who stuck him in the way of the food and got his jacket messed up and made him get glomped by those Hufflepuff girls!"

"Man, Shino...Shino's heartless. This is why I never wanted to go up against him. Anyone who goes up against him goes down," Kiba said, leaning against the wall.

"DON'T THINK I DON'T SEE YOU TWO!" they heard Neji roar down the hallway as he continued straight for them.

"Oh crap!" Kiba yelped as he and Naruto got back to their feet and began running.

"It'll...it'll grow back in a few days!" Naruto cried out, though his words fell on deaf ears as Neji continued to chase after them.

"And _this_ is why I never want to ever play tag or hide-and-seek with a _Hyuga_!" Kiba hissed as they continued the game of tag.

* * *

Anko sniffed. The moment this hex wore off, she was going to murder the entire Gryffindor-Slytherin fourth-year class, and then never stay in the same room with Snape again. It was decided that she was spending way too much time with Snape. Because of this spell, they had to bathe leaning against the wall with the other on the other side of the wall. 

Anko spent the rest of the day grading papers. Hm, this person had nice handwriting. A plus. Neat, B. Okay, C. Illegible, F minus. Okay, she couldn't tell with this person's handwriting. It was too small. Let's see, Chang… C.

Snape, who often spent mealtime in his chambers working on potions, refused to leave his lab, which meant Anko would be forced to eat with him.

"So... you cook?"

"Gods no. I leave it to the house elves. Keeps them out of my lab."

"But that's _sooo_ unromantic!" she said. He couldn't tell whether she was being serious or sarcastic.

"And we would _need_ to be romantic, _why_?"

"Cook me something, Sevi-kun! Er...Sevi-poo!"

"No."

"_Please_...!"

"No."

"Now!"

"Fine!"

When was the last time he cooked? For anyone? For _himself_? He _never_ did. He was _Severus Snape_. Cooking was for _house elves_.

When he told Anko so, she asked in response, "Then why the hell do we have a kitchen?"

Good question. Why? He ordered a house elf to bring a cook book and glanced through the pages. Okay… beef, broth, water, sliced celery, chopped onion, carrots, potatoes, salt, ground black pepper, and flour mixed with some cold water... Stick it together and make stew, right? Things went rather well, until he got to sticking it all together. He was mixing the stew, busy thinking about the potion he was making for the night...

...When it turned purple.

"Sev'rus?"

He frowned. _That_ wasn't supposed to happen.

"Seeeev...? Is that a potion?"

"Shut up!" he snarled, going back to the cookbook. What the hell did he do wrong?

"How the heck did you turn ordinary stew into a _potion_?" she asked.

"..." He frowned. Okay, everything he did was _exactly_ right, so why the heck did it turn into a potion when he mixed it? And why did everything _always_ go wrong while Mitarashi was around? This was annoying. Agh! He angrily threw the book away.

"You really ought to control your temper better," Anko commented blithely.

"_You_ do it!"

"Control my temper? I believe I already do that, going to class with you every day and letting you stick me in the corner."

"I mean _cook_."

"Why don't you let the house elves do it?" she whined, picking the book up off the floor. She frowned. "...Hm... okay... tuna, rice vinegar, rice, wasabi powder, water, soy sauce, knives..." she muttered taking it all from the house elves. With the exception of the knives of course. She opened her jacket to reveal her entire set knives in the inner pockets. Snape shuddered.

"Alright, all I hafta do is cut the fish and stick it all together," Anko said. "Easy."

And so she cut the fish. And she cut it some more. And she continued to cut it for the next five minutes.

"Mitarashi...you have just managed to slice the fish so small that it has literally now been grounded up..."

She snapped out of it. "Aah, I forgot!"

"How could you forget you were cutting something! _That_ fast? If you were really going off on tangents off in your mind, then you would've cut off your fingers!"

"I wouldn't cut my fingers. I'm an expert with these things."

"With the knives, perhaps," he admitted. "But not at cooking, apparently."

In the end, they ended up ordering the food from the house elves.

Though Anko still refused to eat anywhere near Snape's potion lab, surrounded by disgusting things like newt legs and frog eyes.

"So who did your cooking?"

"Who did _yours_?"

"House elves. Don't tell my _you_ had some. You thought Micky was Filius's child."

"Filius? Oh, Mr. _Flitwick's_. Well... yeah, the resemblance _is_ a bit uncanny..."

"I bet you're the type to grow up in your mother's guest room," he muttered.

"Pfft, what makes you think _that_?" she snorted, rather unladylike.

"Well, I can't imagine you living on your own, with cooking skills like yours."

"Hey, my sushi's cook when I don't forget to stop cutting..."

"You _really_ make your _own food_?"

"You _really_ weren't joking about _me_ living with _my mother_?" Anko laughed. Snape glared at her, feeling a bit confused and annoyed at being confused.

"I fail to see what was so funny about that," he muttered.

"Lemme ask you, how old is _your_ mom?"

"If she were alive...possibly late fifties, early sixties."

"Oh, so she's dead."

"You have the subtlety of Nicholas's blunt axe."

"Thank you. I do try. But seriously, how long do you people live anyway? To their fifties? Sixties?"

"Dumbledore is already about a hundred fifty-four years old. His fifty-fifth in a few months. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy—"

"The prats parents?"

"—...they are in their forties. And I do know that Minerva is somewhere in her late seventies..."

Anko stared at him, not bothering to shut her mouth until Snape told her so. "...Holy_ crap_! You guys live _long_!" she exclaimed.

"The oldest any wizard has ever lived—aside from Nicholas Flamel who died recently at six hundred sixty six (2) and his wife who died a shortly after at six hundred fifty-nine—was...two hundred eighty-four," he said. "How long do the _Japanese_ wizards live?"

Anko frowned. "Not as long as you guys..." she muttered. "The legendary Sannin are fifty-three. Shizune's thirty-one. The original Ino-Shika-Sho is turning forty or forty one...I used to think they were old, but not anymore, I think... Hiashi's turning forty-five... They probably won't die for a while... Sarutobi was one of the oldest men in our village, and he was only sixty-nine! I hear that the sand has people turning eighty though... Anyway, I read somewhere that the average lifespan in our village is, like, in the thirties... One of our most powerful Japanese wizards died at the age twenty-six, so I guess that unlike here, age and power don't really mean a thing..."

"...Just wondering, but how many people are _in_ your village?"

"Um...hundreds?" she guessed. "No idea, really."

"...Okay, what kind of backwater village are you _from_?"

"Hey, I'll have you know that we're pretty advanced," Anko said, feeling offended being described by the same term the Leaf had formerly used to describe the Sound. "Only the Sand 'conserves' their old people."

"Why the mortality rates? Disease?"

"We're all fighters. We're not at war or anything right now, though it's probably coming soon. The only reason we're not at war is because villages can't officially call war. Only countries..."

"The average lifespan is now in the thirties, and you haven't even officially declared war yet?-!"

"Well...good population control?"

"You're kidding me, right?"

"I do 'kid', but not with you. Besides, we haven't started, like, mass killing each other yet. We're just on very tense terms with each other. And if we ever meet each other in person, we're likely to murder each other..."

"...Out of curiosity, how old are _you_?"

"Twenty-seven and still alive!" she said proudly, since it was a lot more than what a few of her former friends could say. "But don't worry about me, Sevi-poo, I'm a survivor!"

"Who's worried?" he sneered. "I could care less. _I'm_ just wondering when I can get you off my hands."

"Atta boy, Sevi-poo...that's the spirit!" she said, undaunted by his reaction. She continued to scour her pie. She didn't want to know what exactly was in it. All she knew was that Hagrid had 'home-grown' whatever it was in there. She wasn't sure whether she should look at what she was eating or not, but speared it as if it were still alive. And perhaps it was.

"Mitarashi, if we are still stuck tomorrow…" he said through gritted teeth. "We may end up stuck all day..."

"Why not ask Mr. Flitwick to help us out?" she asked, chewing on her fork (3).

"I refuse to ask that psychotic mutant of a hobbit for help!" he snarled.

Anko stared at him. "Men...won't ask for directions or even a bit of help," she sighed with a grin.

He took a deep breath. "In _any_ case, if you and I are still forced to stay in the same room all day long...it would feel less painful if it... felt like we're doing this as a choice."

"Your point being...?"

He took another deep breath, forcing himself not to crucio her ass for having that stupidly blank look on her face. "I'm asking you... to pretend... that I asked you to spend lunch with me in the dungeons... For the sake of pretending this state we are currently in...is of our own free will."

Anko looked at him for a split second.

"No."

"…" Now he was _really_ tempted to crucio her.

"Let's go to _Hogsmeade_," she said cheerfully. "Dungeons are a bit gloomy for my taste. You come with me to Honeydukes so I can stock up for the task on the twenty-fourth—it's only four days away. So this is my last chance to get some instead of having to sneak out the night before to get it! And after we get my candy, we'll get something to eat, and stay _out of_ the dungeons. For the sake of pretending we're friends, yeah?"

"...I suppose I should say, 'whatever you say'?" he asked wryly.

"_Duh_."

* * *

After dinner, Draco Malfoy had received a lengthy letter from his father, concerning a new arrival at the Malfoy Manor. Of course, it wasn't _really_ from his father. Lucius Malfoy wasn't a family man. He doesn't talk to his son. Because that would make him a family man. Of course, he rarely wrote to him as well. That made him a mean man. So, the last few letters had actually been from the new cook. 

As disdainful as Malfoy first was at being addressed by a mere _cook_, this 'Hatsu Zane' was an interesting fellow and, as Draco soon realized, was _not_ a house elf. This alone astonished him. _People_ could _cook_?-! This was impossible! Yet he _did_.

Hatsu Zane was, indeed, a (self-proclaimed) Master Chef.

Draco. Was. Amazed.

Talking to this guy was... it was like talking to an alien! An alien who just so happened to not make sense. Yet, these inane letters were an interesting read and were much more appealing than his own father's reports. Draco felt a bit guilty at this lack of filial piety, but it couldn't be helped. 'Hot Soup' Zane was much more fascinating than his father, even _with_ his pimp cane-wand holster.

In this week's letter, Zane mentioned something about a new arrival. A blind girl who was in assistance with his father's boss's partner's assistant's assistant. Or something like that. As far as Draco knew it, Lucius Malfoy had no superior. ((I'm trying to get into the habit of calling more people by their first name, by the way.)) He was at the top of his business. Then that must've meant...it was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. But He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had a partner? An _equal_?

Preposterous!

Yet somehow, Draco knew it was true. He headed out of the Great Hall after skimming through the letter and deciding to read and write back in greater detail. What he liked about 'Hot Soup', as the teen Master Chef often called himself, was that he always listened to everything Draco said and would sometimes write back, _actually telling him what he thought about it_.

Draco almost couldn't wait for the Christmas holidays to meet Hot Soup in person.

But then, looking up from his letter, Draco saw a familiar blond. It was that abomination of a blond! His hair was not 'fair and beautiful' like his own. _His_ hair was _loud_ and _yellow_.

How on earth Uzumaki managed to get hair bright enough to be called loud, Draco could not know.

What worried him was how Uzumaki was now grinning at him with a gleam in his eye that almost matched the Sabaku siblings' glares, though it lacked the actual murderous intent.

Draco froze in mid-step as the other blond approached him menacingly.

"Uzumaki...what the bloody hell are you scheming?" he demanded, backing up into a corner.

"I'm testing something out," Naruto said. "A technique that even surpasses the...Oiroke no jutsu... _UNSEXY NO JUTSU!_ (4)"

"AAAAAaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

* * *

It was November 13. _Friday_ the thirteenth. The worst day, in Harry's opinion, of this year. 

He wasn't ordinarily a superstitious person. He was a wizard, but he didn't believe in the silly little customs that said that you would have a bad day just because someone said so. If he _did_ believe that, then Trelawney must have killed him just how many times already?

But today was _definitely_ a bad day. He could tell. Just this morning, he had lost his invisibility cloak. His _father's_ invisibility cloak. What was worse was that when he told Naruto, the blond had grinned cheerfully at him and told him that he had borrowed it.

That was the worst thing that Harry could possibly ever think of. Naruto. With _his father's_ Cloak of Invisibility.

Not only that, but, he realized that for his training, _everybody_ was coming. Even Gaara. Shikamaru. Temari. And _EVERYONE ELSE!_ Even those who never came. With the exception of Tenten, who was not attending because Neji was there, and Neji, who's mind seemed completely absent because Tenten _wasn't_ there.

"Why is Neji so, uh... mild today?" Harry wondered to Shino as the two stayed at the back of the group. Unlike earlier, while Neji seemed to be possessed by the devil himself as he chased after Naruto and Kiba with a seriously murderous intent, he now looked completely...empty-headed.

Neji had this glazed, half-doped look in his eyes. And for some odd reason, Harry just had the sneaking Shino was in on the secret to Neji's sudden change in attitude.

"…" Shino answered silently.

"...Right," Harry nodded, pretending to understand and backing away from Shino.

"Y'know, Naru'o..." Neji said, sitting down and leaning the side of his head on the tree. He fiddled with his now-short hair with a perplexed look on his face. "Th'z charm y'used t'make my air seem like is cut off... Ya gotta show zis t'me sometime..."

"You like it short?" Naruto asked, looking confused.

"Naw...I wanna shave ya when yer leas' 'specing it," Neji said.

"…"

"_Anyway_," Shikamaru said. "Ino, I've brought our work—"

"Damn you and damn you again, Shikamaru!"

"—and Shino, thanks for drugging him, but I think you overdosed."

"…"

"Today, we're just going over survival exercises. Harry, you run in the forest and try not to die. And that means all of you guys: try to kill him."

"WHAT?"

"I don't mean _kill_-kill you. Just...make it so you can't get away. Guys, don't kill him, don't hit him where it hurts, and don't permanently injure him."

Yes, Friday the 13th was, indeed, a day of bad luck.

* * *

Fleur, Cedric, and Viktor, hidden under the 'borrowed' Invisibility Cloak, sweatdropped.

* * *

It was exactly eight days after the humiliating ordeal in the Forbidden Forest. Naruto, Kiba, and Ino apologized profusely after the survival exercise, which ended around one o'clock. Hinata and Sakura were kind enough to blatantly refuse to hurt Harry and, while they also refused to fight their own friends, they had often helped him escape in the night as the other shinobi chased after him, healing bruises and other wounds. The only two who were completely uninvolved with the torture were Shikamaru and Ino, who were still busy with the list; Gaara, who for some mysterious reason, refused to lift a single finger against them (not that he really needed a finger for simple attacks, but he didn't do anything anyway); Tenten, who just wasn't there; and Neji, who was too out of it to lift a finger and was ranting to a tree about how it needed to 'stop watching Harry' because it was just creepy like they were being stalkers. 

Why Neji considered one tree to be 'they' instead of 'it' remained an unanswered question for Harry. Of course, there was also the question as to why Neji was talking to a tree in the first place.

Harry was only too eager to escape to Hogsmeade. He still wasn't sure why the heck Naruto "borrowed" his father's cloak, and he didn't know why every single one of the Japanese students were so bloodthirsty that night. They really did seem sorry about it later, but it wa almost as if they were trying to Saturday at three in the morning (after an hour's worth of sleep) that the infamous Weasley twins decided to finally officially announce their forcing themselves into the former one-on-one war between Naruto and Kiba. The two shinobi soon found themselves forced to coalesce and unit in the face of a greater 'evil'.

And so, Harry spent the night with a pillow over his head, trying to drown out the blaring 'airhorn' sounds that the Weasley's were setting off in Naruto and Kiba's dorm, until McGonagall was forced to come when Naruto and Kiba began to launch fire-pillows at Fred and George.

Needless to say, it was a relief to escape the glares of other students and the danger of the pranks of the few friends he still had left. While Naruto and Kiba assured Harry that, as an apology for the Friday-13 incident, he would be completely safe from harm and pranks. But, with their tendency to miss the target, things were always tense, even when he forgot about the school-hating-him-for-being-in-the-tournament thing.

So, wearing his Invisibility cloak, Harry roamed Hogsmeade alone, watching everyone else.

Bored, Harry stepped into the Three Broomsticks out of the cold. At one table, he spotted Anko and Snape in the middle of some glaring competition, yet the conversation exchanged between them was casual enough, though a bit forced. Anko was busy asking Snape about some borderline dark magic/potion which worked similarly to a Polyjuice potion that would "create" a new identity and give others a false memory.

'_Good gods_,' Harry shuddered, heading for a random table. '_Now they're working together. That's it. We're all doomed, Gryffindor and Slytherin alike..._'

Seeing an unopened bottle of butterbeer, he quickly grabbed it. A pale-eyed boy reached for the butterbeer that was no longer there and suddenly looked cross. The veins in his temple seemed to suddenly appear for a split second when Harry recognized those angry, pale eyes.

"Potter..." Neji Hyuga said threateningly under his breath. His hand shot out under the table and took a hold of his cloak. "Here, westerners say, 'Buy Your Own Beverage', am I right?"

"Er...technically, it's 'bring your own booze'," Harry muttered under his breath. "But yeah, I get the point."

He glanced at the table with Anko and Snape. "I wonder if she knew that by 'get close to him', she knew that Kakashi didn't mean it like that..." he said.

"Huh?"

"…"

Harry looked at Neji strangely as the Hyuga sloshed his drink around, swirling it and watching as it would constantly reach the rim without spilling.

"Sit."

"...Er, what?"

"I said _sit,_ you cowardly idiot," he said. Harry sat. Though he wondered why the heck Neji called him a coward. What'd he do now? Seeing as Neji didn't seem to actually mind Harry taking the unopened butterbeer, he opened it and took a sip under his Invisibility cloak, waiting for Neji to tell him whatever he wanted. And he waited. And waited...

"_Well_?" Harry said expectantly.

"Well what?" he said angrily. "What are you doing here anyway?"

Harry suddenly realized with a sinking feeling in his stomach just why Neji hadn't been drinking the butterbeer.

"_Are you _drunk?" Harry whispered to him.

"Well," Neji said, sitting up straight all of a sudden, recovering from his angry mood and suddenly becoming oddly cheerful. "I think of myself as...as..._huh_?" He frowned, looking up slightly with his head tilted back a bit as if he were thinking, trying to remember what he was doing here.

"…"

"Oh yeah..._unsober_. Yeeeah," he said. He slumped forward all of sudden and his head fell on the table, his hitai-ate band hitting the wooden table with a 'clunk'.

"_...Are you alright?_"

"…"

"_Neji_?"

"She dumped me!" he said suddenly, sitting up straight once again, the bottle of firewhiskey now evident in his hand. Harry jumped back and nearly fell out of his seat. "Why the heck would she do that?-!"

"_...Er, I don't know..._" Harry said nervously.

"It's because I'm 'not romantic enough'! I'm not a romantic! I'm a Hyuga! Is being pretty not enough?-! All Hyuga women are pretty enough to make up for that!" He grabbed the front of Harry's shirt shaking him back and forth. Ron and Hermione, who were sitting at a nearby table, looked over at Neji suspiciously. Not that Harry could really blame him. It must have looked strange, with Neji shaking an invisible person, talking about how he was a pretty Hyuga woman...

"_Nobody_ dumps a Hyuga! I'm a...I'm a Hyuga! Nobody dumped me! But Tenten did! And you know what else she did?"

"_...I don't know_," Harry hissed, trying to pull away without knocking the chair he was half-seated in.

"She stabbed me in the leg! With a quill! A _sharp_ quill! A sharp _inked_ quill! And now I have a black stain of ink on my pants and robes!"

"_But...your uniform is black. No one can see it anyway._"

"No! A Hyuga sees EEEV'RYTHING! _See_? It's...it's... Okay, I can't see the ink, but I KNOW IT'S THERE!" He allowed one of his hands to stop holding Harry and pointed at his leg accusingly. "I KNOW YOU'RE _THEEERE_!-!-!" He looked up at Harry again, looking a bit confused. There it was again! The weird eye-veins! But it was gone... "Hey, Potter...what are _you_ doing here? And why are you on my hand?"

"_You're uh...making a scene_!" Harry hissed, trying to get away from the Hyuga dipsomaniac.

"I'M NOT DRUNK!"

"_I didn't say you were you idiot_!"

"AND I'M NOT SMALL EITHER!" Okay, now people were definitely starting to look. "Heeeey! There's five of you! You don't know the _bunshin_! Stop doing the—" ((AN: 'baka'...'gaki'...kinda sound alike, right?))

"_Let. Go!_" Harry said, starting to really freak out and felt a sudden burst of energy run through him. And it seemed Neji felt it as well, though it appeared that whatever he felt was much more...shocking.

"_BZZZZZZZLRT!_" Neji had a twitch in his eye and looked as if he were getting his by a stun gun or something as the rest of him twitched as well.

"—_aughoblerzatsgo_bunshin!"

Neji fell backwards out of his chair. Off balanced, Harry tripped over his own chair, knocking it too the ground. Suddenly, Hinata and Naruto ran into the now silent room. Maybe Harry was just seeing things. Hinata did that eye-vein thing too and it was gone in the blink of an eye.

"_Sorry_," he heard her murmur to him under her breath as she and Naruto collected their now unconscious friend/cousin and dragged him out of the building as quickly as they could. Okaaay... People went back to drinking. Well...things like this probably happened every day.

Mildly freaked out, Harry crept out of the Three Broomsticks. Wondering around, he found himself standing in front of an unfamiliar store. It was relatively empty. The sign above it showed what looked like some sort of Chinese characters, and below it read scrawled in black and white and almost decorative paint was, "Partners in Crime".

Curious about this vaguely familiar building, he walked inside and found himself wondering how he could forget anything here. Everything in it seemed so memorable, yet he couldn't place when he had come by before.

This building was definitely unforgettable. There were stalls which held strange powders, most of them had a "**WARNING**: DO NOT SNIFF" painted in red on the glass cover. He had no idea what they were, but the sand itself looked rather captivating, constantly moving around on another. There were some bangs heard in the back rooms... If only he could find out where the back room _was_.

There were a handful of mannequins, as well as strangely grotesque figures probably meant to look like something symbolic in the corner. Feeling a bit warm, Harry removed the Invisibility Cloak and continued to wander around in the strange store.

And then, he heard some voices. It was another language, and he didn't understand what they were saying, but he _knew_ those voices, as they still haunted his dreams. And it wasn't even Voldemort.

Oh...crap...

Harry began to run out of the doors when he bumped into someone, knocking his glasses askew.

"Itai!" (5) someone shouted. Harry groped around on the floor, searching for his glasses when he felt it and picked it up. Placing it on his head, things were still fuzzy. Oops, this must have been that other guy's glasses. Looking at the blurry figure

"Are those mine?" the stranger asked, squinting at him. He had a funny accent... They switched glasses quickly when Harry finally saw and recognized this person.

"You!" he shouted, pointing at Kurogane with an accusing finger as the dark-eyed teen lifted a brow in response to this.

"Yeah. _Me_," he muttered irritably, rearranging his glasses. " ...Do I _know_ you?"

"..." Harry sweatdropped. "You're Naruto's friend, Kuro—"

Kurogane covered Harry's face with his hand. "Not another word. I'm Tobinezumi (6)."

"…"

"…Or just Tobi..." he muttered at Harry's blank stare. "Who are you again?"

"Harry Potter," he said suspiciously.

"...Nope. Doesn't ring a..._oh,_ you're the guy I accidentally attacked."

"Er, yeah."

"Yeah. Sorry about that, by the way."

"Well, I'm not dead. No harm, no foul?"

"Right, so what do you want?" Kurogane asked, crossing his arms firmly in front of his chest. "Don't tell me that stupid—"

"_Haaaaarriiiiii_!" someone cried. Crap, he had forgotten all about the Makotos...

"Heri Ba—eh, _Pa_teru!" the smaller one said proudly, pointing at him.

"No, no, no..." Kurogane said tiredly. "He...ri... Pa...and ter... Not eh... _Er_... No 'oo'." He turned to Harry. "They _just_ started getting the 'p' sound..." he explained.

"Bateroo!" she said loudly. Kurogane groaned loudly.

"IT'S HARRY _POTTER_!"

"Harry?" two familiar faces walked into the building. Or, rather, one familiar face. Just doubled.

"Fred? George?"

"Hari Pateru!" the Makotos said proudly, much to the Weasleys' amusement. "Pah!" The two girls jumped Harry. "Haaaaai, Haaaaari!"

"Weeks since their arrival, and all they've learnt is 'hi', 'Harry Potter' 'I'm Makoto Mikoto', 'I'm Makoto Mariku', and 'Mother'. Mind you, they're not pronouncing any of it correctly," he sighed, pulling Harry away from them almost protectively. "You two! Stop that! Tomare! Go show off or something!"

Kurogane waved his arms to the Weasley twins and, apparently, the Makotos got the point as they deftly extracted strange powders from small test tubes and led the customers to the other side of the room.

"Unh...it's like babysitting all over again. Only this time, one's a stupid tokubetsu jounin and the other's a genin... This is the worst 'task' ever," he groaned, rubbing his eyes. "Speaking of tasks... nine dragons. I heard a few dragon keepers in the pub a while ago. I played around with loosetongue... you might want to study dragons. It's pretty interesting. And it'll probably a bit useful, even if you don't feel up to becoming a dragon keeper."

"Huh?"

"Never mind that," Kurogane said. "The Makotos wish you good luck in the tournament. Want to give you this thing..." He pulled a gray stone from his pocket. It hung on a thin chain. "Wear it as long as you can. Throw it off and onto the ground _only_ if you're in deep shit. Like, about to get killed. Not injured. _Killed_. The longer you wear it, the better. Don't use it within one month of putting it on and don't take it off ever, even in the showers. That's what they said anyway. Don't ask me, I don't know.

"And give this to Naruto and his friends," he said, giving Harry a scroll. "And don't open it. It was hard enough for me to stuff everything in it in the first place. It has boots, gloves, socks, jackets, long-sleeved shirts, etcetera. It's starting to get colder, and a friend of mine mentioned snow where she's at and that it'll probably get to me pretty soon."

"Yeah. Oh, about that summoning contract..."

"What summoning contract?" Kurogane asked.

"Can you ask the Makotos about it?" Harry asked. The older boy stepped past the shelves for a brief minute. Harry could see the Weasleys both bowing to the Makotos and had a bad feeling that they had just found their most favorite people in the world. Kurogane spoke in another language rapidly. Definitely Japanese. The Makotos grinned, saying something to Kurogane, and waved at the Weasleys as they began to head away.

"Ba-ba!" Mariku said, waving at the twins.

"...Haha, bye!" George (or Fred?) laughed as the older one grinned.

"Come on," Kurogane said as they walked behind the cash register. "We're going to the back room. VIP pass. And you two redheads in the shelves! No stealing!"

Unlike the colorful shop in front, decorated with strange products and dust, the back was a bit more serious and less cluttered looking. There were test tubes covering ever few inches of a large desk with magical flames heating them up and forcing them through some sort of strange contraption. The Makotos were currently at a wall entirely dedicated to drawers as they searched through each one of them, pulling out random scrolls in search of the one they were looking for.

A few rolled open and Harry was able to glance at the ones on the floor that lay forgotten for the time being. One of them showed some sort of gate in the shape of an arch with a number of small notes on the side, arrows. There were two maps nearby—one of the world, with tiny red and blue dots decorating the surface, and another map, also with red and blue dots, but of a world that looked much different. Completely different. Like someone had mixed the world map with a blender and randomly splotched the land and the sea together. There were small signs on both maps—black circles—but there weren't very many of them. Also, he could see in a corner a box that looked almost like a computer's. Heh, weird.

The Makotos pulled out a scroll and Mikoto rolled it open out onto a table after her sister swept it all off and all of the other papers fell to the floor. She began talking rapidly in Japanese.

"What's she saying?" Harry asked.

"That this is the scroll you signed," Kurogane said. "What did you want to know about it, again?"

"Just...why dragons? Naruto said he never got dragons. And how can I summon three?"

Kurogane relayed the message to the girls. Mariku replied.

"Okay, this has nothing to do with what you asked," he retorted, "but they're explaining the legal contracts and the illegal."

"...Tell me I don't have an illegal one," Harry said. "If I do have one, you...do you know how much publicity I get _without_ doing anything?"

"Not that kind of illegal. Just unorthodox. That's a better word for it. You have the illegal one. The unorthodox one. In fact, there are very few summons which are considered legal. Almost all are illegal, because the summoned creature was once a living creature. Basically, youkai. Or what you here call demons. Well, Muggles call them demons. You just call them ordinary magical animals. Hn, that's a paradox... Anyway, to have a youkai become a summoned creature, you must kill on. Ordinarily, if you kill something... well it doesn't want to die. So it refuses to be 'tamed' by the killer."

"Wait, if it dies, how can it be tamed?"

"Youkai can't be killed. At all. Never ever. Well...actually, there are certain cases..."

"Like what?" Harry asked eagerly.

"That's not your business," Kurogane muttered. "_Anyway_, the slain youkai refuses to be tamed... Okay, when all youkai die, they have to go somewhere. Their spirits. The easiest place to stick it is in blood. Any blood will do, but the minimum... would be about... the blood equivalent to that of a baby's."

"Exactly a baby's?"

"Well, preferably one that's not premature. In any case, every scroll," he said, holding up the scroll with the name 'Harry Potter' written in it in dried blood, "has the demon's name written on it in blood somewhere on it. The name is a bit more powerful than it looks. For an illegal summoning scroll, you have to have an expert seal it. Of course, sealing specialists are would be in high demand, since they rarely ever survive their first lesson, so it's a good thing that youkai are rare nowadays. When you illegally seal a youkai, you have to raise it back from its child form. Like _chibi_. Small and deformed. The longer you keep it out, the better.

"Naruto has a summon. He has a lot of options, ranging from Gamakichi, who's about the size of your foot, to Gamabunta, whom Naruto claims it to be over a hundred meters tall, and I believe him. The toad scrolls are one of the oldest scrolls in the world.

"Your summon will grow a bit more and develop its own techniques with time. It grows slightly larger whenever you take it out. You won't notice it much. Gods know what goes on in their own 'spirit' world, but we do know that they're stronger whenever you bring them out and stuff. After a really long time of working with your summons, you might get them to learn to talk. They also usually have a bit of an attitude problem."

Kurogane sighed as the Makotos continued to speak and he continued to translate. "A _legal_ summon, on the other hand is a bit different. They don't really have a...personality, I guess you could put it. They function more like a part of your body instead of a separate creature. Unlike the unorthodox, they're one of a kind. You can't summon another creature of the same species unless it is also legal. That's the best way I could put it. And that's all I need to tell you, since you don't have a legal one anyway."

"Oh, okay," Harry said, turning around to leave. "Wait... that never answered my questions. Why the dragons? And how can I summon three?"

Kurogane relayed the message to Mariku. "They say there wasn't three," he answered.

"What do you mean by that? I saw three! There were definitely three dragons," Harry said.

He shrugged. "I'm just translating their words. Don't ask me to understand what they're _thinking_," he said. "And, remember what I said earlier about the tournament."

"What about the tournament?"

"The _dragons_, Potter," he said darkly as he began nudging Harry out of the room. "Think about it."

...Dragons... His dragons? Or the ones that he and the others chased after in the forest? What did they have to do with the task? Sure, the dragon hunt was sort of changed into an extra credit task to impress Dumbledore, but...

Harry froze as he left the backroom. Fred (or George) looked at Harry strangely.

"You alright, Harry?" he asked.

"I am..." he replied tonelessly as he realized in horror what he was up against. "But I won't be." He pulled the Invisibility cloak back from out of his robes and covered himself before leaving the shop, feeling slightly dazed. He dully noted Ron and Hermione running out of some bookstore with a book and excited grins. Not that he cared, as Moody and Hagrid approached him, despite his invisibility. Hagrid said something about going into the forest at midnight.

He was dead meat.

* * *

((I'm skipping the Harry goes into the Harry-sees-dragons-in-the-forest and the Harry-meets-Sirius-in-the-fire part, since everyone's read it already and this chapter is so far already over thirty pages... (sweatdrops).)) 

It was three in the morning, and Harry was just sitting in bed, thinking and feeling rather dead inside. He wasn't _scared_-scared. Just feeling rather... depressed. Life just kept on throwing things at him. And he just kept getting hit. Earlier that night/morning, his suspicions were confirmed when he had seen the dragons. It didn't make him feel any better.

"Harry." He looked up to see Naruto looking at him with a strange expression on his face. "You alive?"

"No."

"Are you sulking about something?"

"No."

"Then quit angsting and go to sleep. You've been sitting like that for how long now?"

"I'm not angsting?"

"Then what are you sulking about?"

"_Two dragons_," Harry said in an urgent whisper, wanting to scream and to shout but not wake up the room's other sleeping occupants. "Two_ of them. We'll be slaughtered and eaten for dragon lunch!_"

"I could deal with them!" Naruto said cheerfully. "No need to get worried!"

"_You could deal with it only if you use your weird Japanese magic trick stuff_!" he said. "_Are you really going to do that in front of a crowd? I know that you have Ino take care of all watchers, but can she handle a crowd of _hundreds_? We have to use_ ordinary_ magic to do this task!_"

Naruto frowned. "...I don't think ordinary magic is the only way to go," he said. "The preferable way, perhaps, but not the only one..."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing," he said. "Tell me what happened?"

Harry explained to him the entire story, about how he had left the Makoto's prank shop and met Hagrid, who later told him to go into the Forbidden Forest ("Are you stupid?-! What if he was an enemy in disguise? He could've killed you!"), where he later saw Madame Maxime, Hagrid, and Karkaroff.

Naruto closed his eyes for a moment. "I think I can do something with that information," he said slowly, finally starting to look a bit serious. "I've got a plan, and we're going to win more than just a task..." He broke out into a grin. "So _relax!_ Uzumaki Naruto has got a plan! Now come on!"

"_Where are we going?_" Harry whispered, until he realized the reason that Naruto wasn't bothering to be quiet was because his side of the room was Silenced. "That's big," Harry said.

"Yeah," Naruto said.

"Where are we going?"

"We're visiting the Aburame bug-man," he said with a grin.

"In the middle of the night?"

"Morning, technically. Besides, it'll be interesting. You haven't seen him with his bed hair yet, have you?" Harry shook his head. "Good. It's funny."

* * *

Naruto knocked on the blank wall, where Harry remembered the Slytherin dorm was located. It was three in the morning! Who would be awake at such an untimely hou—? 

The wall became a door, and an annoyed looking red-head peered through the entrance.

"Naruto."

"Hey, Gaara! Is Shino awake?"

"No one is."

"Great, let us in," he said.

"No, why...—? _'Us'_?" Gaara moved slightly to look behind Naruto with a slightly confused look on his face. Harry, remembering he was under the Cloak of Invisibility, took the hood off his head, so it appeared that his head was floating in mid-air. "Oh."

Harry recovered his head and followed after Naruto after Gaara nodded and moved aside for them to enter.

Harry noticed a sudden change in Naruto's position as he went from carefree kid-mode to some kind of spy kid-mode. Now that he was inside, Naruto was creeping completely silently towards one of the rooms. He opened the door with a hand and pulled out his wand.

"Silencio!" he said, pointing at each bed inside and the entrance to another room that said: TEMARI—KEEP OUT!

All except one bed. Gaara, who was still sitting in the common room, leaned backwards on the green and silver decorated couch to see what Naruto was doing and fell backwards when he saw the blond start shouting and making a complete havoc as he jumped onto Shino's bed and began bouncing up and down on the mattress. Gaara twitched and hastily Silenced all of the other dorms where the other Slytherins were. Idiot forgot the non-shinobi...

"…!"

"Hiya, Shino!" Naruto said. "I'm gonna need you to do me an' Harry a favor."

"…?"

"Harry's in his cloak. Anyway, _we_—as in me and Harry—need to write a bit of something, and _you_ are going to help us."

"..." Shino grumbled as Naruto seated himself on the covers. The Aburame tried in vain to get rid of the 'bed hair', but gave up, and settled for putting on his sunglasses, despite the darkness.

"Shoot," Shino ordered, with a quill and parchment in hand.

"Okay, so here's what I want to say..." Naruto began.

* * *

"I haff receiffed a letter from Harry Potter," Viktor said to the other two champions, holding up a letter and Gaara's owl, Yaksa. 

"It was Naruto's fox that sent me that thing," Cedric said.

"And a vairy beautiful white owl delivered mine!" Fleur gushed, holding up a clean light blue sheet of paper (not the old parchment, but, rather, stylish stationary). Hers was so much prettier than theirs! She opened her letter and cleared her throat, reading her letter out loud to the others.

_Dear Ms. Fleur Delacour, _

_Due to an unexpected turn of evens, I have recently realized that the dragons that we had retrieved a little over a week ago on Monday, November ninth, are actually to be used in the first task. Because learning this would give me an unfair advantage over you, even though I am currently unaware of the exact goal of this task, it would, at least, give us an even footing. I also hope that this information would remedy any ill feeling you may harbor towards me, considering that fact that you and I are "rivals" in this tournament, on top of the fact that my name had been illegally submitted in this tournament. I would not rather have this chance to befriend wizards of great potential from other foreign communities to become some sort of feud, fueled by the bitterness of something as low as petty rivalries. After all, the Triwizard Tournament was originally formed to promote international friendship, as well as amiable bonding. _

_Sincerely,  
Harry Potter and Uzumaki Naruto_

Cedric shook his head. "I got the same thing too," he said with a smile.

"Then vy are you laughing?" Viktor asked him.

"Do you seriously believe him? He's partnered with _Naruto Uzumaki_, of all people! You were there when he turned the entire Hufflepuff table into creepy 'Pokey-men' things. And he brought a skrewt and let it loose in Herbology! And he did some kind of thing on the Japanese judge where the guy nearly died of a heart attack!"

"But 'e is telling ze truth!" Fleur declared. "Madame Maxime told me so early zis morning!"

"And Karkaroff varned me as vell," Viktor said sullenly.

Cedric went pale at this. "They...they're really going to give us _dragons_?" he asked weakly. "Are they crazy? It takes multiple specially trained wizards to take one down! We're mincemeat!"

"Then again...the Japanese wizards too care of vem quite easily..."

"But they're getting as cocky as hell!" he moaned. "They're a lot meaner than I thought too! I mean, they know Harry better than is and, heck, they're even _friendlier_ with him! And they _still _beat him up without batting an eye! I mean, you guys, remember that. And Harry doesn't even complain…"

They all paused to think about it.

Cedric sighed, shaking his head. "Oh dear lord, they'd broken the Boy-Who-Lived and beat him into submission..."

"I don't zink it goes to zat extent," Fleur said hesitantly, "but you do 'ave a point."

"Merlin, that's how they treat the _Boy-Who-Lived_ who's partly friends with them. I wouldn't doubt it if they _let_ the dragon step on _us_ and _then_ beat it down in the ground, the poor things. And poor _us_. Guys, we're going to _die_!" Cedric shuddered at his own imagination. "We are dead..."

Fleur sweatdropped and decided to change the subject. "What do you think of ze Japanese now?" she asked.

"They're ruthless and _mean_," Cedric said quickly.

"I think that they are a bit strange..." Viktor said. "Er...Erm... A girl I saw today in the fillage. She had a book and I belief it may be on the Japonese."

"What makes you think zat?" Fleur asked.

"On the front coffer, it read, 'Eastern Clans and the Theory of Clan Magic'," he said.

"Sounds interesting," Cedric said, recovering from the temporary trauma he had inflicted upon himself with his imagination. "Do you know who the girl is?"

"Er...Erm...Erm..." Viktor said.

"If you don't know it, then just say you don't know it," Cedric said. "It's alright if you don't."

"But I do..." Viktor said. "Her name is...is Erm..."

"Erm. A girl named Erm?"

"Er...mine... Ermine…" he said slowly. "Ermine Granger, I think..."

"..." Okay, forget Fleur. Viktor had just mutilated, chewed up, and regurgitated the name Hermione.

"I know about her," Cedric said, nodding. "She's one of Harry's friends. Actually...I'm not sure about that right now though. Harry and his best friend are fighting for some reason, so she's trying to act as their mediator. It isn't going well either. But, uh, yeah. She seems to be favoring his friend a bit more though. But she's basically neutral. A bookish girl, and smartest of the three, if not her whole year. Not including the Japanese students though. Dang, they're taking all titles, aren't they? They were smart, most were voted best-looking and best at mischief-making, they were sociable and popular, and were most fear-inspiring, and-or unforgettable... Kinda makes a person feel insignificant, eh?"

"Well, you aren't too bad looking," Fleur said. "Many girls are cooing after you, and you even 'ave your own fanclub."

"Oh thanks, are you in it?" Cedric asked.

"No."

"Aw..." He sighed. "I'll be in your fanclub though. You're smart and hot too!"

"…"

Cedric laughed. "Anyway, I'll see about looking for any other of those books on the East and their 'clan magic', though. I think we might be onto something here."

* * *

"No more pranks," Naruto told Kiba later that day after classes. "Tell the Weasleys we're dropping out. Harry and I need to study for the task." 

"Aw," Kiba complained. "That's not fair. First you guys get to hunt down dragons and stuff, what's next? Skrewts? You guys always get the fun stuff!"

Harry sighed. 'These people are crazy...' he sighed to himself as he and Naruto walked into the library, finding it to be a bit more crowded than usual. He felt a pang, seeing Hermione and Ron studying out of the same book at a table. Fleur, Cedric, and Viktor were at another table across the room from the table with Kankurou, Gaara, Sasuke, and Neji. It weas almost as if they were trying to avoid their own partners. Which, as Harry knew quite well, was damn near impossible, considering that each one of them seemed to have some sort of spying technique, or _something_.

Harry didn't know what or how, but they had a way to watch other students that he couldn't figure out, no matter how many times he watched them himself.

Ino, Temari, and Shikamaru were half-hidden behind towering books and stacks of parchment, talking amongst themselves. Harry didn't get enough time to see more people because almost the moment he and Naruto stepped into the room, Neji appeared and pulled them all the way back to his and the others' personal table.

"You _actually told_ the others?" he asked Naruto. "You told them about the dragons?"

"Oh, so you know too, eh?"

Kankurou sighed. "Dude, you just got rid of your advantage over us. Remember? Winner gets the reward, losers don't?

"Well," Naruto said, "if Harry dies, _none_ of us gets any money. Anyway, I was just thinking, what if Lord What's-his-face isn't the only enemy. What if—? ...Harry, go read a book."

"What?"

"Go read something on dragons and come back in a few minutes. We need to talk about something, and anyone named Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Fourth Champion, or Scarhead may not be present at this meeting. Excluding Gaara, of course," he added, looking at Gaara.

"No one calls me Scarhead," Gaara said stubbornly.

"Not to your face anyway..." Kankurou muttered under his breath.

"Well you are No one," the redhead said to his brother firmly.

"No, I'm Hurt."

"…"

"Anyway, corny jokes aside," Naruto said in a businesslike manner, "Harry, go."

Harry left, sulking. "It's not as if you guys even talk like I'm here anyway..."

Naruto shrugged, not really caring. "I was just thinking, what if..." Naruto paused for suspence, "What's-his-face, Orochimaru, _and_ the Akatsuki are working together? W e know that if it's any of the three, Voldie _has_ to be in the group. Because it was magic that made the Goblet of Fire spit our names out. But since Voldie's the only one who knows magic, then why the rest of us? Orochimaru _would_ want Sasuke back. And maybe me too, since that ero-sennin trained me. The Akatsuki could want Gaara for his you-know-what, and Kankurou since he's been voted 'most-likely-to-die-for-the-Kazekage-in-vain' three months in the row since the 'Kankurou-got-his-ass-kicked-by-Sasori' incident."

"What about me?" Neji asked.

"People all over out countries are fascinated by the Byakugan. They could want you killed. And maybe even later take you apart and study the Byakugan. Or they might do an Orochimaru and take your body," the blond said.

Neji shuddered. "No way am I giving _that_ up," he muttered. "Hold on..." The Hyuga frowned.

"What?" Sasuke said.

"Our champions are talking with Harry," he said. "I can't hear them. Too many people here."

"I'll take care of that," Naruto said, pulling something small, red, and furry out of his pocket. Whatever it was, it ran out beneath the tables and headed towards Harry and the other champions.

"Was that...Vikki...?" Sasuke said.

"Yeah."

"...And he was the size of a mouse, right?"

"Yeah."

"...Does anyone find this _not_ weird at all?"

"No."

Sasuke nodded. "Okay."

Naruto took out another tiny red fox from his pocket.

Sasuke frowned. "This is Vikki."

"Yeah."

"And he is the size of a mouse, right?"

"Yeah."

"Does anyone find this _not_ weird at all?"

"No."

"Okay." Sasuke nodded to himself, but suddenly slammed his head on the table. "Yeah...not dreaming...I've just got the weirdest feeling of déjà vu..."

"Seriously, Sasuke," Naruto said to the Uchiha, "I got him from a store that said _Magical Menagerie_. What did you expect?"

"...I expected it to _not_ split itself into smaller things and... do things like that," he muttered.

Naruto nodded as he and the fox stared at each other as if they were in some kind of staring contest.

"What's going on here?" Neji demanded.

"Hold on..." Naruto said. "They're talking...kinda about us..."

* * *

"Psst, 'ey. '_ey_! _Boy_!" Whoever was calling for him, Harry ignored them. He was in no mood for the jaunting and jeering from the other houses and was going to continue straight forward when a hand reached out from in between the shelves and pulled him in. Crap, he was getting jumped by Slytherins. _Again_? Couldn't they just give up? The Japanese people could kick his butt without a moment's thought, but he wasn't _that_ pathetic. 

Reacting quickly, Harry continued straight towards whoever was pulling him and shouldered his attacker, shoving him into the bookcase all the way at the end of the shelves when he saw a familiar face of someone he was _not_ expecting.

"Ow."

"_Cedric_?"

"That's it..." the Hufflepuff said, clutching his ribs but still forcing a smile to show that there was no harm done. Well, to their 'relationship' or whatever. Wherever their 'relationship' was. The Hufflepuff had never shown any aggression or anger towards Harry, but he was sure that Cedric and he would never be considered the 'bestest of friends'. Definitely not. But acquaintances would be nice. Anything less than that was less than preferable, as Harry was sure that Cedric, being three years older than him, was probably not someone he should be idly messing around with. "Ow, my back hurts too..." he said, reaching for his back. "Or my ribs. My ribs or my back? Ow?"

Harry forced a smile as well. "Uh...yeah. Sorry?"

"S'alright," Cedric said quickly, serious once again. Harry looked at Fleur and Viktor, who were standing behind him. "Okay, we have to make this quick. We—that is, Viktor and I—really do believe that you hadn't put your name in the Goblet, alright? You're a decent guy, and not only that, but you're also smart enough to not enter a contest and get killed when it's relatively obvious enough you don't like the spotlight..."

"It is?" Harry asked. "You guys are, like, the first to notice..."

"Well then everyone is a fool and we are not," he said. "All three of us, however, are pretty sure that the Japanese have something to do with all of this. Don't you think it's a bit funny that _they_ were chosen too? And that the _Japanese_ Minister of Magic—a guy whom we've never heard of before—suggested that we each have a Japanese partner _and_ that the Japanese Minister knows them? Also, it's the perfect number! One for each of us!"

"No, not really," Harry said.

"Huh?"

"You forgot Kankurou. He's the odd one out..."

"Oh yeah... well who cares about him? The point is that everything they do is so...suspicious!"

"So what?" Harry asked defiantly. It was only fair that they didn't butt in. After all, everyone was entitled to his or her secrets. Besides, with all the threats he received about the punishments that _all_ of them could receive just by giving too much information, he wasn't sure he wanted to know much about them anyway.

"You can't even tell if they're really trying to help you. But...your friend Hermione has some book, and _we_ think it might have clues. It's something about 'Clan Magic' or something like that. Look, we don't want to force you to choose between us and your friends, or to steal something from them. Because, well, they're your friends. But we want to get a look at it, so if you can get us a copy or something, we might be able to help you..."

"And," Viktor said suddenly, which was a rare thing for Harry to hear, "ve vuld also like to zank you for the dragon help."

Harry nodded. Okay. They were definitely up to something. He and the other champions looked around to make sure no one was listening in. "Your welcome," he said. Should he tell the Japanese about it? Or his 'friends'? Or no one at all? It was hard to decide who to side with.

Ron and Hermione had gone through mysteries and adventures every year with him, but they weren't exactly the best of friends at the moment. The Japanese were as smart as Hermione and were probably his _best_ bet if he wanted to get down to the bottom of this, but the other champions had brought on a very interesting question. What if it were the _Japanese_ who were the enemies? Though if was doubtful. After all, it was Dumbledore who brought them here in the first place, and Dumbledore wouldn't purposely allow dangerous individuals into Hogwarts?

Wait...

What the heck was he thinking? Of course he would! Not on purpose, of course, but Dumbledore had the strange habit of bringing psychos to school. Like the Quirrel-Voldemort...thing? Incident? Yes, incident. And there was Lockhart. And _Snape_. Hagrid...well, he was dangerous too, but only because he was like a huge, shaggy ten-year-old who thinks he can tame anything. The only good Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher that hadn't attacked him was Professor Lupin—wait, no...

Harry remembered only too vividly getting chased through the Forbidden Forest by a mad, raging, bloodthirsty werewolf.

And Moody? It's all in the name. It was MAD-Eye Moody. It probably wasn't mean to be interpreted that was, but it was true. He was _mad_! Insane! Paranoid! Psychotic! Practically foaming at the mouth!

Anyway, his third choice was to side with Cedric, Fleur, and Viktor. But doing so would betray his friends who...well, were his best friends, and the Japanese, who were slowly becoming his worst fear. Not to mention, they could've been lying about their suspicions of the Japanese fold just to trick him into getting Hermione's book for them.

After a few brief moments of thinking, he made his decision. He wasn't going to steal a book from Hermione and risk dead by 'flying-million-page-dictionary-catapult', and he wasn't going to risk getting the living daylights beaten out of him in 'training'.

He was going to sit back and watch how things turned out. And, of course, try to stay alive in the meantime.

Which would mean focusing on surviving the first task.

* * *

Harry followed after Naruto all class the next day. It was Monday, November 23, and the task was scheduled for the next day. Harry had been trying to get a word with Naruto all day long, but the evasive blond kept on escaping to talk with his friends and run the hell away from Harry. Why he was doing this, Harry was not sure he wanted to know. 

"Naruto," Harry said firmly, finally cornering and walking up to the blond, looking at him straight in the eye. "The first task is in twenty-four hours, and I want...no, and you are _going_ to tell me exactly what we are going to do for it."

Naruto took a deep breath. "Fine, Harry," Naruto said. "I'm going to tell you the truth, and I swear to you on my honor that it _is_ the truth... And the truth is..."

Harry braced himself for a brilliant idea...

"...I have no idea."

"…" Harry didn't say anything. He stared at Naruto, literally petrified.

"...Harry?"

"…"

"Um...I was joking, just so you know."

"…"

"Harry?"

Still no response. So Naruto just whacked him upside the head. "Yo, Scarhead! Get a grip, that was a joke!"

"HOW COULD YOU MAKE A STUPID JOKE LIKE THAT?"

"I'M A FUNNY PERSON! IT'S VERY EASY!" Naruto shouted back.

"Aaargh! You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

Naruto sighed. "Alright, alright, all joking aside, I've already figured out what we're going to do. Problem is...neither of us can do it exactly right yet."

"...What?"

"Moody said something to me. A while back. It was after class, actually. We were kinda... arguing amongst ourselves when he just came up to us, that weirdo... Me and Sasuke and all of us. Gryffindor and Slytherin. Our friends in our year in those two classes. Yeah. And we were talking about...just, junk. You know, if you'd eat a spider, a roach, or your finger if it were a life and death situation... what you'd do if you were abandoned on a deserted island... things like that. And Moody... well, we just had the misfortune of being on a question like that while he was around when he went completely berserk on us all."

"What do you mean by that?"

"As in, he's all..." Naruto made a twisted face and imitated Moody's hoarse voice, "CONSTANT VIGILANCE! IF YOU WEREN'T ALL FOOLS, YOU COULDN'T GET CAUGHT IN A SITUATION LIKE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE! ARE YOU WIZARDS OR ARE YOU MUGGLES? YOU DON'T GO AROUND 'WISHING' FOR A CRUISE SHIP OR A SHELL-FUN, WHATEVER THE BLOODY HELL THAT IS! YOU GET A WAND AND THEN YOU EVER WHATEVER YOU NEED FROM THAT!"

"…"

"Honestly, that man is a loon..."

"What's the point, Naruto?" Harry said. He would've been amused by the poor imitation if this weren't such a poor imitation.

"Well, it just came to me recently—right after you told me about the dragons, in fact—what we would need to do in a situation like this. Here's the game plan: you're the Seeker for the quidditch team, right?"

"Right, but what does that have to do with—?"

"Shut up and let me fiiiniiiiish!" Naruto said impatiently, like a little boy. "You're small, light, fast, and you've got an awesome broom, from what I've heard from the other guys. I'm...well, okay... I'll admit it I'm _kinda_ short, but not really, right? I mean, I'm almost as tall as you! I mean... give or take a few inches, yeah? Man, you Westerners are tall...

"Anyway, I'm a bit stockier than you, too, and strong, right? And we can't use our real techniques in the task in front of everybody... If anything, the most it'll be is two dragons for the two of us. Or just one dragon for the two of us. No three, no four. Just one or two. That's enough. As sh...we're taught even as children, never to try and win with our weakest point. Like... play with your talents. Your only talent just happens to be quidditch."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. My only talent seems to be using my...my double-me technique. Yeah. But I can't really do that with everyone watching, can I? I don't know what the others are going to do, but I do know that with you flying all around the dragon's head... that'd make a good distraction."

"I can't fly. We're only allowed a wand."

"Only you normal Western wizard people," Naruto corrected. "_We_ are allowed anything that'll fit in our pocket. But when I think about it, I don't _need_ anything from my pocket. Everything that we'll need is right here." He held up his wand.

"...A wand," Harry said, staring at Naruto. "You yelled at me the first night of training for pulling out a wand and calling me a sissy swishing a stick!"

"Heh, yeah, but that's _before_ I realized how awesome this thing is..." Naruto said with a relatively evil, un-Naruto-like grin. "All the pranks in the world..._from one wand! Muahahaha!_ Anyway, what kind of spell could we use to get anything from anywhere? Think about it for a minute..."

"…"

"What's your worst?"

"Potions?"

"Because of us."

"Charms..." Harry said slowly, as Naruto's idea began to form in his mind. "A summoning charm! We can get my broom!"

"Exacto mundo," was Naruto's smug reply. "But unless you can pull off the Summoning charm in twenty-four hours, you and I going to be going through an all-nighter."

* * *

And so they practiced. Harry and Naruto ate some sort of strange pill ("No, no, it's not some illegal drug..." Naruto assured him. Harry swallowed it. "Well, it's not illegal where we're from anyway..." Harry nearly spat it out, but when Naruto warned him that Kiba wasn't letting him get any more than one for each of them, Harry decided to risk the 'drugs' and just do what the blond told him to) and they skipped lunch and dinner. 

Harry would have gladly skipped classes, as he had Potions and Divination anyway. And so he did. Naruto assured him that his Kage Bunshins wouldn't get caught in the act of taking their places while he and Naruto played hooky.

In the Forbidden Forest, Harry tried with all his might to make various objects fly at him. He was still having problems, but the main problem was the objects he was trying to summon.

"Concentrate! Just concentrate, that's all you need to do!" Naruto cheered.

"Well what do you think I'm trying to do?" Harry said in exasperation. "I huge, fifty foot dragon keeps on popping up in my head for some odd reason! Besides, AAAH!"

After his first success, Harry wasn't so sure he wanted to do this anymore... He pulled the kunai out of his robes, where it nearly had him pinned to the tree through the shoulder.

"Oops, heh, shoulda thought about that," Naruto said sheepishly. "Alright...summon, um... here!"

Naruto pulled out a large number of scrolls.

"These shouldn't hurt too much if they hit you. They're the safe ones. Mostly. But this would be good training. We wouldn't want you to end up summoning Trevor or something..."

"Right..." Harry said, thinking about how bad it would be if he was left with something completely useless, rather than his broom.

"Alright, summon the one with the blue edges... Okay, it moved a bit. The green. Good, that was an inch. After getting a hunk of sharp metal nearly buried in your shoulder might've discouraged you subconsciously, but it's not that bad! Good, um, the brown one...!"

Unlike Harry's other training experiences with the Japanese, training one-on-one wasn't too bad. He preferred this much more than with the groups, where it seemed like everyone was playing 'who-can-beat-Harry-up-the-worst'. It was much less painful.

They took frequent breaks, where Naruto told Harry amusing stories about his pranking conquest of his hometown and how he soon became the self-proclaimed King of Pranks. Some of the things he pulled off were so absurd, so bold, Harry wasn't sure how Naruto could have survived the punishment the 'authorities' dished out to him afterwards.

"Wouldn't your parents get all angry with you about that?" Harry asked him.

"Nah, I don't see them too much," Naruto said. "I don't think they could ground me even if they tried! Say, Harry, close your eyes and try to summon that rock!"

"Why?"

"Just do it! I want to see if you could do something kinda far without really looking."

"Er...alright," Harry said hesitantly. He closed his eyes and waved his wand. "_Accio rock_!" The next thing he knew, something big and hard struck him in the face and he was knocked out.

Naruto stood up, brushing the dirt off his pants. "Angry parents, feh," he snorted. "Oops...didn't mean for that to happen." He inspected Harry's face. "Ooh, that'll leave a mark. Sakura's probably sleeping and I can't remember the password to Ravenclaw... No matter. I'll ask Hinata. She's nice and won't kill me if I wake her up..." His face broke out into a grin.

* * *

1) I really like those anti-drug commercials... "blah", my anti-drug.  
2) No, I didn't really kill him at 666 on purpose. It's just that the P. Stone was destroyed when he was about 665 years old, so let's just say he died not long after. Only a year. So I added 1 to 665 and 658. So Nicholas Flamel is 666 and Perenelle is 659. Btw, ironic that 6-6-06 is the worst day of the year and the year of the 'apocolypse' or whatever for catholics, but it's also the luckiest day of the year for those in Malaysia. While Catholics are going, 'the world is going to eeeeennnd!', Malaysians are getting married left and right.  
3) I do this... I'm probably ruining my teeth, but I usually sorta... chomp on the fork when I eat. Which really annoys me when I get the one fork out of all the ones that my whole family hates, because one of the little stick thingies is way outta place and when I bite, it _reeaaally_ hurts...  
4) I think that somewhere in the Post-time skip arc, Naruto mentioned to Konohamaru a technique that surpassed the Sexy no Jutsu. But who said it had to be pretty? I'm thinking, the only thing more powerful than a very hot and sexy naked woman with pigtails is a very ugly, fat, manly woman with hair on every inch of her body (where it's _not_ supposed to be, anyway). I made Naruto steal this idea from Konohamaru's failed attempts at the Sexy no Jutsu.  
5) Itai means ouch. I think. I don't really like putting a lot of Japanese in this. Makes me feel like I'm 'showing off my knowledge of Japanese words'. Because I'm not. I wouldn't because I know them very badly. But if you're going around in another country and you hurt yourself, would you say in reaction to that pain the ouch equivalent in your language or theirs?  
6) Tobinezumi... I think it means flying mouse/rat. Or Tobinezu? I don't know Japanese... so it's probably wrong. ...Help, anyone?

* * *

**My Thinking Corner **

Yeah, considering the fact that it's sometimes confusing which Malfoy I'm talking about, I think I'll call some people by their first name from here on out... -.- Also, yes, I realize that Cedric is a bit OOC... I couldn't help it. I wanted to make a funny person in the group, but I didn't want to make the funny person have the accents, because that makes things really hard... Besides, Viktor Krum doesn't really talk and Fleur, I see her as a kinda prissy rich girl... T-T

Anyway, this chapter was really really really long before. I mean, right now, it's long too. Thirty pages. Whoo... I'm tired. But still having fun, yeah. But I had to delete the Break-Up scene between Tenten and Neji. It was waaaay too long. I know I'm gonna get a licking for this one. NejiXTenten is popular, so I think I'm going to be _un_popular for a while, for the sake of humor between now and (BEEEEP). Please don't hit me too hard in my reviews...

I had fun thinking up the pranks. Problem was, I couldn't fit it right into my timeline. I actually have a calendar of basic events for this fic. This is how organized I am trying to get. And you know what? I think that the 6-6-06 date thing... it really WAS the apocalypse. That's the day I started summer school. And realized that my teacher is overly nationalistic. I don't mind people who have pride in their home countries, but come on, PLEASE teach history from a NEUTRAL point of view! But I'm one of the smartest people in that class so I don't mind. I have to sit in the front though...

I love writing for drunk/drugged people. It's so much fun, I've realized! Sorry, that was something I came up off the top of my head. Anyway, I know I made a big mistake with the dates. Somewhere... I'll find it eventually. But whoever spots it can rent one of my cows (but NOT keep it!).

You know, it's almost sad how no one shows any respect to Gaara anymore. His brother, his sister, his assistants, Shino... I mean, I'm surprised Shino's still alive after that article! And I WROTE this!-!-!

**Anonomys**: You actually have to ASK who he's taking to the Yule Ball? EH? Okay, okay, sorry, I guess I've really been neglecting that couple... I'm kinda tempted not to tell you. If you look at the first chapter, you might be able to tell. In fact, I you can, because it's in there. Definitely, I just checked.  
**darkflame**: Are you serious? WIIIKIIII! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO MEEEE! And thanks, I forgot about that place.  
**Dragonblack**: Thanks! And, uh...as for the Kyuubi questions... you won't find out until nearing the end of this fic, and/or possibly the beginning of the next. I actually was tempted to completely ignore it (okay, not _completely_, but not make it a big deal and whatnot, because, well, _everyone_ makes a big deal out of it. Everyone likes Naruto now. He's funny, and it just turns out that he's not a complete fool after all, you know? So why would anyone care if he's got a demon in him? And I understand the first part... 'it says good luck with my/your Spanish in the future, student!' AWESOME! And uh…the next part, uh... DAMMIT! Something about how I might pass the test and something about this stuff being in my head. Wait...DAMMIT AGAIN! (sob) why couldn't I have remembered my junk DURING the test...? T-T You mean... gloating person. ...Imagine being able to pump out a 45 page chapter and my best comeback being, "You mean gloating person". God, my brain has melted out of my ears... Uh oh...brb, I'm getting a napkin, haha.  
**DangerousAndDemonicDevil**: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Sasuke isn't dating Pansy! EEEEEEEW! That's...that's... EEEEEEEEEEEW! That's a no, by the way. It was a joke. Cedric wasn't asking for actual real couples. He was just asking for a weird one. ...Dang, now that I think about it, he should've said Anko and Snape. Oh well. I don't know if I'm really going to go with that anyway. Anyway, hope you did good on your exams.  
**Anonymous**: Thanks. The thing is, that Parselmouth isn't his own natural ability. It's Voldemort's. If anyone is going to summon snakes, it would be that guy. Not that Voldemort would summon snakes. I wouldn't do that. More importantly, no one's stupid enough to try and teach him ( LV: "Argh, I did it wrong! Crucio!" Teacher: "AAaah!" "Avada KeDAMMIT!" "(dead sound)"). I can totally see that happening in my head and I am laughing to myself and my family is staring at me like I am crazy. Which I'm not, by the way. Anyway, I was _considering_ giving him deer, but I wanted Shikamaru to do that... though deers really don't fit Shikamaru too well, despite the name. But deers are overrated. And dragons are too, but the thing is that I saw Kishimoto's old sketches of a huge fat dragon with Naruto sitting on its head (Naruto's summon was originally going to be a dragon (because it's a DRAGOn, come on), then a frog (because ninjas are often involved with a frog or something, or so I read) and then a toad (because it's like a frog, yet somewhat spontaneous). But instead of a BIG fat dragon, why not just a few small ones? Of course, I'm planning to (beep) it a (beep) and then it will (beep) or (beeeeeeeeeeep...) and (bep) (and yes, I know it says BEP, it's like a really short beep). Does Neji summon? Mm... Next question. And yeah, I guess Harry would get snakes, but someone pointed out to me that Harry was really underrepresented in this fic, so I decided to give him a bit of something unique. And I like that idea of a technique. Kinda reminds me of Battle Fire from something (either the back of my head or something I read in a fantasy book when I was little). And the Dark Bring... dangit, I _should_ remember that but I _don't_. Argh, I've got alzheimers!  
**Shadow-Sess-Marlfox**: Dragons are soon. That's why this fic was so long. And Harry's summon? Didn't you read it? It was "three" small, fat, relatively useless dragons about the size of his palm. And, uh... Malfoy the ferret. Uh... SHIT! Dangit, I'm sorry, I forgot about that. sweatdrops Ugh... I'll do it, um... someday... Sorry. (hits head and shouts to wall:) How could I have forgotten that!  
**Too lazy to get an account**: Thanks! And, um... I'm lacking decent responses and things to say, but, uh... thanks! And maybe I am, maybe I'm not. A small but growing number of people are saying so. In fact, my sister gave me a balloon on my birthday that said, "It's a girl!" I think she's trying to make a point.  
**U.S.S. Shipper**: Uh…contrary to common belief, I started this fic without knowing what the hell I was going to do. I meant to just make a chapter or two of situations that could happen that I couldn't get out of my mind. People flamed it like hell, so I ran into my cave and stayed there for a week until it died down. And so I was like, "okay, gotta fix this!-!-!" And so I tried it again. No flames, but not all of them were very nice still. So I deleted that one too. And then I started freaking out about how horribly I wrote and how insanely stupidly random it was and began to draw out plans, ideas, situations, quotes, background characters, supports, hidden plots, seemingly random thing to say that actually have a hidden meaning, throwaway names, how each character would react to each situation, the couples (I did a request on the first fic and ended up with GaaSaku as my first request and I was like, 'wow that's unique' and turns out it isn't as there are dozens of C2s with it). And that's how I actually got into fanfiction. My life story, you know? I mean, before, I couldn't stand fanfics. Because I was like, "aaaah! All unoriginal, all emo, all stupid, all mary-sue (amazing that I understood the concept before I started writing and reading) and all everything I don't like!" And then I read my first fic, which was GaaHina (Desert Lily, I think) and I was like, "ooooooh". Dude, this response is getting too long. And uh, a warning before you try out my vocabulary: chances are, most of these are grammatically deadly. And your sister thinks my writing is troublesome...? T-T And...(toss) Take that! A cow in your face! Nyaaaah! (sticks tongue out at people and wonder why people start calling me a girl...if I'm not.) Better cut my rambling short...  
**setjerro**: a friend of mine brought up a really interesting point, and that if I use your ideas and stuff, you might start going, "he's copying my ideas! He/She's copying my ideas!" and cause a whole bunch of annoying problems. Nothing that would beat me upside the head, but it would be annoying. Yeah. I mean, I don't think you would, since only an asshole would do that, but still...after some of the things that happen to me in life, I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened. Besides, his techniques are a surprise. Either that, or someone will be like, "ooh, use my idea!" or "do this" or "do that" and after a while, it gets annoying. And just a comment, but you're _always_ sleepy when you review. Reviewing makes you sleepy. I should review more.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27: Back into the Frying Pan Again -.-  
_The First Task (FINALLY!)_

Harry woke up that morning, exhausted, with a headache the size of the giant squid—which was really, really big, hence the 'giant'—yet feeling somewhat invigorated. Maybe it was the knowledge that he was not, in fact, going to die in the first task. Or maybe it was just the prolonged effects of those "three-day pills" Naruto had given him the previous night, giving him constant bursts of adrenaline all morning long as he laid in bed, not really wanting to move. Whatever the reason, he was having trouble putting on his socks.

It wasn't until Naruto had come into the room to check up on him until he realized why.

"You don't be too cocky," the blond advised him, "That's good. But don't be all so _nervous_ either. 'Cuz that'll mean you have no _faith_ in my _awesome_ _powers_." The blond grinned at Harry, who didn't seem like sharing in his amusement.

"Who's nervous?" Harry said tersely. "What makes you think I am?"

"Well, for one, your hands are really shaky. Two, it's probably from the adrenaline in a fight-or-flight situation. And three, you're trying to put your foot in your hat like it's a sock."

"I might not just be nervous," Harry muttered to himself in embarrassment. "Maybe it's because of the fact that you _tricked_ me into summoning a _rock_ into my _head_."

"Heh, maybe," Naruto said. Despite his excuses, Harry suddenly felt a tightening feeling of anxiety in his chest.

After getting his own clothes on the right parts of his body, Harry ran into the Great Hall, though he wasn't really hungry. Most of his adrenaline had left him feeling oddly empty inside and, after realizing that he was, indeed, in a state of panic that morning, he later missed the adrenaline. The fear had been invigorating.

Frowning as he realized just what he was thinking, Harry suddenly came to the understanding that he was spending waaay too much time with the Japanese students on their manhunts. Or, as Dudley would have called them in his childhood, perhaps it would have been more accurate to call them the "Harry Hunts".

The atmosphere in the school was almost intoxicating, making him feel tense and nervous. The reason everyone was so cheerful was because he was risking his life. Not an entirely pleasant thought. Lessons were to end at midday, giving all students time to get down to wherever the first task was being held.

Harry felt isolated from everyone. Most wished him good luck or snidely mentioned the boxes of tissues they had ready for his soon-to-be tragedy. It was a state of nervousness so advanced that he wondered whether he mightn't just lose his head when they tried to lead him out to the dragons and start trying to curse everyone in sight. Of course, Naruto and his friends, whom he was currently hanging out with, might not appreciate any such sudden bout of insanity.

One thing that Harry noticed while hanging out with Naruto was that, even though he was the chaos itself, he was also the calming factor amongst his friends. Despite the fact that he was constantly making himself the target of his companions, often making crude jokes that made _everyone_ lunge forward to kill him (or, at the very least, give him a good smack upside the head), it seemed that this almost ritualistic clobbering would count as "bonding time" between the whole group.

In other words, without Naruto to beat on, no one really seemed to have much of a connection with each other.

Time was behaving in a most peculiar fashion. If there were ever some sort of magical hourglass of sand, instead of a steady stream of sand, Harry was positive it would actually be coming out in sandy clumps. One moment, Harry would be sitting with Naruto, Kiba, Hinata, and Ino in History of Magic, listening to Kiba and Naruto talk and laugh amongst themselves in Japanese, watching Hinata gaze shyly at the oblivious blond boy, and trying to get a glimpse of the names that Ino had already managed to cross off her list.

The next thing he knew, he was sitting outside of the Great Hall eating lunch with all other Japanese champions as they discussed weak points of the dragons that they had gathered from the library and from their previous experience in the forest for those who may not have a plan and weren't willing to tell the others so.

Neji—whose hair was no longer suffering the effects of Naruto's Vanishing Charm and had grown back to its ordinary length overnight (which couldn't really be considered "ordinary", but rather, its "former unusual length"—discussed his newly discovered and memorized 'tenketsu'. Harry was proud to have remembered that tenketsu were "chakra points", from that "let's try to get Harry to do what we do by plugging them up" idea/incident.

"You know, we don't really have any use for that information," Sasuke said. "It's not as if any of _us_ were born with Byakugan."

"It's not as if you're sharing anything useful, Uchiha," Neji said. Sasuke, who really didn't care for this sharing of information, shrugged.

Gaara had "noticed" that some red dragon he had taken down a while back in the extra credit task had been struck so hard in the head, it was now deaf. Whether or not it was Gaara who actually attacked the dragon in the first place was unconfirmed.

"Say, Naruto, I know what I'm doing for the task, but what about you?" Harry asked his partner.

"We don't know what these people are planning to throw at us exactly, but only that if involves dragons," Naruto began. "We're going to play the most of it out by ear. But in short, I'll be the distraction at first while you get your broom, then we switch and I try to do whatever it is that this task requires while you distract, and then if I fail to succeed, we switch and I distract and you go for it. We keep on switching until we succeed. Until the task is over."

"Alright," Harry said, nodding. He wasn't sure what to say about that. He couldn't really "judge" the plan. He had no experience with situations like these. But it seemed like a pretty good on. Nice, versatile, mobile, and easy to adapt around problems. On the other hand, it wasn't much of a plan at all. It was too vague and there was no real structure. Not that it really mattered too much. If this was a game of quidditch, then it seemed like a perfectly good plan. Now, whether this task could be even _compared_ to quidditch—that was a completely different question.

McGonagall briskly hurried over to them. Lots of people were eyeing them.

"I had been searching for you in the Great Hall," she said to them. "The champions have to come down to the grounds now... You all have to get ready for your first task," she said in a stiff voice, sounding almost strained.

"Okay," Harry said numbly, getting up to his feet, realizing the time. It was fifteen minutes to two. He was going to meet the dragons in fifteen minutes...

"Good luck," Ginny whispered as he passed. "You'll be fine!"

"Yeah," he said in a voice that wasn't his. He and the others left the castle into the cold November afternoon. The Japanese students shivered, and he vaguely remembered forgetting about giving them Kurogane's winter clothes. Professor McGonagall placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Now, don't panic," she said, "just keep a cool head... We have wizards standing by to control the situation if things get out of hand...The main thing is just to do your best, and nobody will think any the worse of you..."

"Pssh, like it can get any worse anyway," he muttered in a voice loud enough so others could hear, yet low enough so McGonagall couldn't. He rolled his eyes.

Professor McGonagall looked at her favorite Gryffindor students. "Are you all right?"

No. He _had_ been, before this encouraging little pep talk. Note the sarcasm. This conversation with the head of his House had yanked him rudely to the present as he realized just how dangerous this task might be.

"Yes," he heard someone say in his voice. "I'm fine."

Did she actually buy that? Harry wanted to kick himself. That was the most pathetic lie he had ever told yet. In any case, Of course, she probably couldn't do anything, and she knew it just as well as Harry did.

Professor McGonagall led him toward the edge of the forest, but when they approached the clump of bushes, he saw a large tent had been set up.

"You're to go in here with the other champions and wait for your turn, Potter. Mr. Bagman is in there..." she said in a shaky voice, "...to tell you the—the procedure... Good luck."

"Thanks," Harry said in a flat distant voice.

"Don't worry, old lady McGonagall!" Naruto said cheerfully, breaking through the solemn mood like the crazy maverick he was. "I'm here to make sure you get your precious Harry in and out in one piece!"

"You're only a young boy," she said, giving them all a weak smile. "All of you—"

"We're not all that young," Kankurou protested, not wanting to be grouped with the younger ones.

"—But I don't doubt you, for some reason. Not a single one of you. Good luck, all of you." She began to leave when Naruto shouted to her back.

"I don't _need_ borrowed luck!" he called out as the others began to enter the tent. "I can make enough for myself already!"

Somehow managing to look faintly reassured from his words, she turned around with a less grim smile on her face.

Fleur sat in the corner on a low wooden stool. She was not even _nearly_ composed as usual, but was rather pale and clammy looking. Viktor was surlier than usual. Maybe this was his way of showing his nerves? Cedric was pacing up and down the room. When Harry and the others entered, Cedric gave him a small appreciative smile, which Harry returned, even though he felt the muscles in his face work hard to do so, as though they had forgotten how to do it.

As for the Japanese... Fleur glanced up at Neji, who walked over and stood next to her obediently. Almost scowling, he thrust out his hand next to him, as if he was giving someone a stiff yet very informal "side handshake". Fleur held his hand. Neji looked somewhat annoyed. And for some reason, this strange awkwardness reminded Harry and Naruto of the previous Neji-Tenten interaction...

Sasuke scratched his head, probably feeling that since the Hyuga had joined his assigned partner, he should too. But he seemed reluctant to look nervous by pacing alongside Cedric, so he settled for standing next to the entrance instead. Kankurou occupied himself by staring at the material used to make the tent, squinting as if he were trying to see through the cloth and glancing at Neji every once in a while. Gaara sat, in the opposite corner as Fleur, leaning on the pole that supported the edge of the tent near Viktor.

"Heh, I just had the funniest thought," Naruto said to Harry.

"What?" he said, desperate for anything humorous about this situation.

"How Gaara's leaning on the tent pole with that huge gourd he's got," Naruto said. "It'd be kinda funny if the weight under the pole made it collapse and the whole tent went down."

Harry stared at Naruto blankly for a moment but grinned nevertheless. Naruto looked shiftily at the third, unoccupied corner—specifically at the tent pole—with a grin on his face, as if the temptation to knock down the pole was getting to be too much—

"Don't even think about it, Naruto," all of Naruto's friends warned him at the same time. The other champions just had to laugh at the sulky look on the blond boy's face.

"HARRY!" someone shouted. Harry jumped when a strange creature wearing outdated quidditch robes appeared in the doorway. "Good-o! Make yourself at home!"

"In a dirty old circus tent..." Sasuke muttered under his breath. "Right..." Cedric hid a smile.

"Bagman looked like a slightly overblown cartoon character, standing amid all of the relatively pale-faced champions (with the exception of Kankurou, who was wearing particularly dark makeup—ahem, _face paint_ today). He and Naruto were the only genuinely cheerful people in the tent, though Naruto, at least, had clothes that 'fit' him better, since everyone was used to his orange-and-black style. Mr. Bagman's yellow-and-black Wasp quidditch clothes, on the other hand, made him look like a huge bumblebee.

In fact, Harry was the only one wearing his "house colors". Neji and Sasuke were looking oddly alike, with their white tops and black bottoms (though Neji's dark bottom was more like a skirt wrapped around his waist; other than that, it was all white), though for some reason, the Japanese were looking at Sasuke's clothes in distaste. Maybe it was the strange style completely different to the others, with the thick rope around his waste. Gaara wore the same outfit that he had first seen him wearing at the Triwizard tournament, with his own shoulder strap which he kept his gourd on. Kankurou...well, he hadn't bothered dressing up at all. That, at least, made Harry feel a little bit better.

"Well, not that we're all here, it's time to fill you in!" Bagman said. "When the audience has assembled, I'm going to be offering each of you this bag—" he held a small writhing sack of purple silk and shook it at them "—from which you'll each select a small model of the thing you're about to face! There are different—er—varieties, you see? And I have to tell you something else too...ah, yes...your task is to _collect the golden egg_!"

"Ah, and now we're the Easter bunny!" Kankurou said with mocking enthusiasm. "Oh _goody_."

Cedric nodded, to show that he understood what Bagman was saying and continued to pace, looking almost sick. Fleur and Krum hadn't moved at all. Perhaps they thought they might be sick if they opened their mouths. That was certainly how Harry felt. But they, at least, had volunteered for this...

On the other hand, the Japanese students who didn't sign up for this either seemed perfectly fine. Not sociable, though considering that Naruto was the only one who didn't randomly lose control of his temper... They were completely _normal_.

Naruto grinned at Harry. "No worries, Scarhead. You're relatively prepared for this. We didn't spend all this time Harry Hunting for nothing, right?"

Harry shuddered at the likeness of the terms that both Naruto and his own demented cousin used. Harry Hunting indeed. Fleur and Cedric traded glances at that comment as well. It didn't take long for hundreds—or even thousands—of pairs of feet to signal the arrival of the other people. Those who were lucky enough to _not_ get involved with such life threatening games.

They were all so cheerful and excited. Comparing this to the somber mood in the tent, those separated by the thin fabric felt like an entirely different species. It felt like only seconds later that Bagman was opening the next of the writing, purple silk sack.

"Ladies first," he said, offering it to Fleur. She released Neji's hand, which immediately went back into his pockets, and reached a shaking hand inside the bag. She pulled out a tiny dragon that writhed in her hands.

It was a Welsh Green. She showed no sign of surprise by the small creature in her hands, but instead an expression of determined resignation. The same held true for Viktor, who pulled out the red Chinese fireball. He sat down unblinkingly.

Cedric pulled out the bluish-gray Swedish Short-Snout. Harry was next. He reached into back and pulled out a dragon, when he felt something sharp stab at his finger.

"Youch!" he dropped the dragon on the ground. It hissed at him. The Hungarian Horntail.

"Nasty little bugger," Naruto said, looking down at the dragon on the floor and pulling out...the Romanian Longhorn. "Oh good, mine is pretty plain."

Neji pulled out the Peruvian Vipertooth, Kankurou the Norwegian Ridgeback, Gaara the Hebridian Black, and Sasuke the Antipodean Opaleye.

"I've got a _poisonous_ one," Kankurou complained. "That's completely unfair..."

"So what?" Naruto said. "Me and Harry got a horny one!"

Everyone in the room coughed on air, unsure of whether to laugh at the immaturity or to look down on and scorn the crudeness of his joke.

"Now, first will be the announcements, and then you will all go out in a certain order...hold on, I had a list...ah, yes, first will be Fleur Delacour and Neji Hyuga. After that will be Cedric Diggory and Sasuke Uchiha. Then there's Viktor Krum and Sabaku Gaara. Then Harry Potter and Naruto Uzumaki. And last will be Kankurou," Mr. Bagman said.

"What, I don't have a last name now?" Kankurou muttered. As usual, everyone ignored him.

"Now," Bagman continued, "I'm going to have to leave you in a moment, because I'm going to be the main commentator. When you hear the whistle, you go first, Ms. Delacour, Mr. Hyuga. Through _that_ entrance. The closed flap, alright? When the next two people hear two whistles, start leaving on the second whistle. The first whistle says that the previous champion is finished. The second says it's time for you two come out. Now, Harry, Naruto, could I have a quick word? Outside?"

"Er...sure," Harry said blankly. He and Naruto followed Bagman, who led them a short distance away into the trees and turned to the two boys with a fatherly expression on his face.

"Feeling alright, you two? Anything I can get for you?"

"What? I—no, nothing," Harry said quickly. "Got a plan?" Bagman asked, lowering his voice conspiratorially. Because I don't mind sharing a few pointers, if you'd like them, you know. I mean...you're the underdog here, Harry... Anything I can do to help..."

"No thanks," Naruto said abruptly. "We've got a...a plan. Sorta. We know what to do. We're fine. Besides, we don't want to get caught cheating."

"You wouldn't get caught," Bagman said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Of course we won't!" he said cheerfully, starting to lead Harry away. "Because we _aren't_. We're winning this thing without any outside help. We aren't little kids. Bye-bye, old man." Naruto grinned and dragged Harry away.

"The _nerve_ of that guy..." he muttered as he and Harry went inside.

"What?" Sasuke asked.

"I don't like his clothes," Naruto said to them cheerfully. "Forget _us_. _He's_ the one who needs help...That psycho..."

"Bagman offered to help you?" Sasuke asked in distaste. He twitched. "That biased son of a—"

"We refused, of course," the blond said. "We don't need to cheat to make it through this thing alive."

"I don't see why anyone would _want_ to help Harry," Neji said. "No offense, by the way."

"None taken," Harry said, already getting used to the Japanese students' condescending attitudes.

"But seriously, I mean, everyone's voting _against_ him. I guess Bagman's one of the people betting on Harry..." Neji leaned his head back, resting it on the side of the tent. "Maybe that...maybe that's why he's in the tournament..." he said with an odd look in his eye. Everyone in the room exchanged glances with one another, wondering what Neji was talking about. Perhaps he still had traces of the alcohol in him. He still tended to skip phrases and forget words.

"Pardon?" Cedric said politely.

"_You guys need to move it!_" a voice snarled. It was Moody, who had suddenly appeared in the tent doorway, probably having limped all the way over from the stands. Neji frowned. "The whistle's been blown, you fools!"

"Oh." Neji and Fleur jumped up to their feet and jogged out into the field where the dragons were.

"Now," Moody growled, "If all of you bumbling fools would all excuse me... I need to find my way back to my seats. I've got west stadium side seats and they're all across the field..." Moody swore as he hobbled away on his wooden peg of a leg. Kankurou glanced at the other exit shiftily.

"You know...we're probably not allowed to look," Kankurou said.

"Yeah," everyone agreed. There was a brief moment of silence.

"...Oh screw it, are we really going to let something like that stop us? Let's go watch," Kankurou said, getting up to their feet.

"Actually," Cedric said, "I think they've probably cast charms on the doorway. Um, Fleur and Viktor and I have already tried looking out through the exit, but they don't want any of us seeing what's to come. It's probably some sort of reverse Imperturbable Charm so we can't go outside and see what their doing."

Kankurou ignored him though, instead of attempting to go watch through the exit of the tent, he stuck his head under the flap.

"I'm _not_ lying on the ground," Sasuke said. "It's demeaning."

"We really shouldn't do this," Cedric said to his partner and the others remaining in the tent. He got on his hands and feet, sticking his head beneath the folds of the tent as well. "It's improper."

"Well, just hearing Bagman's commentary would probably make us nervous," the Uchiha said.

"I suppose you're right," he said.

"Of course, seeing the dragons in action will _also_ probably make us nervous, so there's no real choice to make if you want to avoid stage fright, so either way, you're screwed. Therefore, you may watch what Neji and Fleur are doing, though I refuse to lay in the dirt. Feel free to tell me what happens while I stand and...guard."

"Nice."

"Don't worry!" Naruto said, pulling Sasuke facedown in the dirt by the front of his shirt down to the rest of the champions. "Dirt isn't going to kill you!"

Neji and Fleur ran outside with the cheering fans. With the rocky terrain, it seemed that the Beauxbatons girl found it difficult to find good footing, unlike Neji who made it seem like it was as easy as walking on the ordinary stone floors in Hogwarts.

"_Ahh, there's our happy first couple! The first two champions tonight are Ms. Fleur Delacour and Mr. Neji Hyuga!_"

As usual, 'happy' wasn't the best term to describe the look on Neji's face, but nobody bothered correcting Mr. Bagman's mistake. Despite the school wide publicity of Neji's spectacular 'dumping', he still looked a bit annoyed by the mistake in Mr. Bagman's words.

There was no dragon in sight. Looking a bit scared, Fleur edged closer to Neji and latched herself onto his arm. Neji looked uncomfortable with this and struggled in vain to pull away without looking like he felt awkward.

Naruto grinned. "I think I get what happened between Neji and Tenten..." he said with a grin on his face.

"What?" Kankurou said eagerly.

"I'll tell you later," he said. "I don't want to miss anything..."

"There's nothing to miss...!" Kankurou protested as Neji finally managed to whisper something to Fleur and get her to let go. The large magical screen above the stadium for the audience in the back didn't record sound though, so whatever the plan was, it went unnoticed.

Neji pulled out his own wand like Fleur did, positioning it carefully in his left hand as he placed his right hand on a rock. He cast some sort of spell on his face, and then drove his palm into the stone. There was an earsplitting shriek as gravel and dust flew everywhere, hiding Neji and whatever was shrieking in the midst of it all. Immediately, Fleur began firing Severing charms into the dust cloud, despite the risks of hitting her own partner.

"_My, my_," Mr. Bagman said, his voice booming on the intercom, "_I do believe that Neji Hyuga has _actually_ attempted to fight hand-to-hand with one of the dragons! Hm, will the dragon keepers and the mediwizards please step for—Merlin's beard, what happened?-!_"

The dust had settled. Neji was standing still, massaging the bloody tips of his fingers with his wand lying on the ground at his feet, as if it didn't matter that there was a second dragon in the vicinity. The first, however, lay on the ground, motionless, with some blood on various parts of its scales. _Her_ scales. The magical screen zoomed in on the dragon, which looked rather dazed, just lying there.

"_...Well I'll be damned_," Mr. Bagman said. "_I don't know what the hell happened...Explanations, anyone? Dumbledore? Anyone at all?_"

"_I know what happened_," Jiraiya said, taking hold of the microphone. Neji paused.

"Nooo, my secret! Mine!" they could almost hear him shout.

"..._While Hyuga went to face the dragon up close, he had Miss. Delacour fire physical charms. Namely, the Severing charm._"

"" another judge said. Karkaroff grabbed the mike. "_There is no possible way a dragon could be subdued by a simple_ charm!"

Neji glared at the judges as they picked apart his techniques like researchers. "Nosy!" he shouted at them from below.

"_That's my mike! Give it! Alright, but how many times can you get hit by a severing charm without developing a single crack? With the angle of the scales, ordinarily, spells would glance off at an angle. But Hyuga managed to bring the dragon out and she hit it from the side, with the spells cracking and hitting the back, chipping the scales. There is a...a Japanese magic that allows them to attack magical reserves. Sort of. I'm not going into detail because, frankly, it's all way over my head, explaining it in English as well. Now, after he attacks it with, um...uh...chi, the dragon has no...energy left. So it goes down. Yeah._"

"_Well that's completely illogical_," Karkaroff snapped, "_but I'll take your word for it. And how come he's not cut up from the charm? He couldn't have possible seen through that dust!_"

"_...Martial arts_," Jiraiya said blankly, as if it were obvious. "_Neji's talented like that._" Neji lost the angry look, at having just been complimented by the sannin (a perverted one, but a legend nevertheless) and looked rather gratified.

"_That makes no sense!_"

"_Yes it does. Oh look, a dragon..._"

"_Merlin, he's right! Give me that mike!_" Mr. Bagman said. "_Um...looks like this one's too big for Hyuga folks! Ah, well, he's running at it anyway. Alright, go Mr. Hyuga! Don't hurt yourself out there—WHOA! Was that a mistake? Nope, guess not! It seems something has distracted the boy and he has fallen face flat _in front of the dragon!"

Naruto and the others sweatdropped. When Neji didn't get back up, they sat up slightly from their spot to get a better look. Did he need help?

"Gaara," Naruto said casually. "Care to help him out before he gets eaten?"

"No," was the flat-noted response.

"That's what he's for, right?" Sasuke said. "He's the guy who fights, but Fleur's there too, don't you forget." A strange sound met their ears when Fleur began to dance.

"_It seems Ms. Delacour is using her veela-like charms to lull the...to lull the...dragon...to slee—_"

Neji rubbed his head and jumped out of the way of the falling dragon. He activated his Byakugan and glared at...something that didn't really matter...

...Because Fleur was dancing reeeeaallly prettily.

...That's all that really mattered, in fact...

She paused slightly, to look at the screen with a strange expression on his face. A beautiful expression.

Neji frowned and looked around. He sprinted suddenly behind the second—the larger—dragon and held something large and gold in the air as he went back towards Fleur.

The dragon snorted in its sleep, spurting a huge flame right at the two champions. Neji, who was standing in front of Fleur, spun so quickly, Harry was unable to see the movement. His strange spinning maneuver managed to force away the fire and relatively protect him. The dragon continued to sleep at Neji blew on his hands and then proceeded to taking off his weird...skirt thing and patting the fire out.

Realizing that his champion behind him was on fire and unable to put it out, busy dancing and keeping the dragon asleep, he ran and pat the flames out as lightly as he could to avoid groping her. Nevertheless, he was forced to jump back when a rain of kunai landed on the ground out of nowhere, embedded where he had previously been standing.

"Tenteeen!" he said.

Fleur sighed, risking a few seconds to conjure water from her wand, completely dousing the few flames remaining on her robes. (Jiraiya whistled.)

Neji suddenly brought his hands to his head, with an odd expression on his face. His hitai-ate! A scratch! He still looked a bit dazed from his fall. Fleur sighed, taking his hand, and led him towards the infirmary.

The moment they went inside, Naruto pulled out a piece of parchment with a large grin on his face.

G.U.N.: Neji! HAHAHAAH!  
ICU...: What?  
G.U.N.: Hah! You call ME dunce? You fell in front of EVERYONE! That was freaking hilarious!

There was a brief pause, as Naruto waited for a response.

ICU...: When did I trip?  
G.U.N.: JUST NOW! You tripped!  
ICU...: You're crazy.  
G.U.N.: No, YOU are! You seriously don't remember?

There was another pause, noticeably longer than the previous one.

ICU...: No...but Fleur says I did.  
IntheSun: I'm sorry! I only saw the general direction.  
G.U.N.: Of what?  
IntheSun: It was some sort of charm that came up from the West Stadium.  
G.U.N.: So maybe it's some prank. A trip jinx.  
TheGeniusSays: Possible, but unlikely. A jinx is a jinx and a charm is a charm. Hinata can tell the difference. And Neji, though he seems a bit weird about it.   
ICU...: I'M NOT BEING WEIRD! I SERIOUSLY DON'T REMEMBER! SO SHUT UP SHIKAMARU!  
TheGeniusSays: Whatever. In any case, if it came from the West stadium then that limits it to our judges, the commentator, the mediwizards, the dragon keepers, the teachers, and foreign arrivals who came to watch the tournament.

The whistle blew again. Sasuke's turn. Sasuke began to get up and leave. Did that mean...Neji was the target?

Sasuke let out a deep breath as he and Cedric headed out of the tent, grinning as he did so. That meant Neji was the primary target. And he was relatively safe. Score!

He grinned. No, wait, Slytherins don't grin. He smirked with his teeth. Cedric sweatdropped. That was way too creepy.

Sasuke glanced at the crowd. He spotted Hinata and some of the others, all heading for the west side of the field where whoever had cast a spell on Neji must have been. He saw Ino sparing a glance at him. Finally. It was his turn to play and she was barely watching! But Ino flashed him a thumbs up sign and a grin. He smirked back. Girls within the vicinity who thought he was smiling at _them_ fainted. Dumb blondes. Erm...dumb girls plus lovely Ino.

He took a deep breath. Unlike with Neji, the two dragons were in the open and were relatively easy to find. One nest held pale gray eggs, and the other had light blue ones.

"Ready?"

"No," Cedric said thoughtfully. "Not really."

"Great, let's go," Sasuke said, cheerfully. Well, Slytherin-style cheerful. Which was a mocking cheer. Which still didn't really fit with Sasuke's face or his attitude, but hey, he was still trying to change. It almost didn't look creepy!

Sasuke and Cedric moved in different directions. Sasuke moved quickly, darting behind rock to rock. Cedric ran...not quite straight at the dragon, but he didn't bother hiding from it. The dragons growled at him menacingly the moment he came within a hundred foot range of them.

Cedric laughed a bit nervously to himself (Tohru-style! From Fruits Basket/Furuba/whatever), hoping for his own sake that Sasuke's plan would work.

"_Calculus mutatio canis!_" he said, pointing at a rock on the ground and then... It became a Labrador. That barely held its head above his knee. "Oh god."

"You're pathetic," Sasuke whispered to Cedric. How he managed to whisper audibly from across the field without shouting it out to the audience, Cedric just couldn't figure it out. "_Engorgio!_"

Cedric jumped away when the dog grew larger...and larger...and larger. Like Clifford, the big red dog.

"Whoa..."

"It needed to be a little bit bigger," Sasuke said smugly. The dragon stared at the huge dog. The dog stared at the huge dragon. They stared at each other. ((repetitive, no?))

The dog barked and yelped when Sasuke made a small flare spark from his wand and it ran straight towards the dragon, barking madly.

The dragon growled threateningly, with the dog treading on its territory. Cedric continued making animals and enlarging them as Sasuke ran quickly towards the nest, quickly glancing at the contents when the dragon noticed him and knocked him aside.

_Nope... that nest is empty..._ he thought, scowling as he rubbed the bump on his head where he landed on a rock. He glared at the mediwizards running towards them, who ended up freezing up on the sidelines before they could enter the field. He sighed. _Time was, my killing intent could stop them dead in their tracks _and_ fall. How I miss being evil..._

"_Aguamenti_!"

Sasuke freaked out when Cedric sent a huge stream of water in his direction. Despite the fact that it would have missed him, Sasuke decided it was best to avoid getting thrown halfway across the field and moved to the side, though a split second sharingan confirmed that it would have missed him.

He spun around to see what the heck Cedric was aiming at and spotted an angry wet dragon standing behind him. Oops, he let down his guard...

"Thanks," Sasuke muttered as the dragon recovered its flame-breathing... ability-ness. He ran away from the dragon. He wanted plenty of space before trying this... Who said Naruto was the only one who tried spur-of-the-moment techniques? Sasuke could to ad hoc just as well as he.

Focusing his chakra to both the tip of the wand held in front of his mouth and his through itself, he took a deep breath.

"_Katon: Karyu Endan_!" (Fire Release: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet) Flames seemed to bloom from the end of the wand as a huge ball of flame erupted from his mouth.

"Blimey! I...I don't know what that it..." Fudge said over the microphone. "Some sort of Japanese technique?"

"No, no," Dumbledore said, in the usual carefree attitude he usually did. "I do believe that was an imitation of what Karkaroff's students did while introducing themselves on the first day of their arrival. Just improved and..." The fire formed into the shape of a fiery serpent that gave a soundless roar that seemed to have even increased the heat emanating from it. "...and apparently in the shape of a dragon," Dumbledore finished, almost sweatdropping.

"Well," Fudge said, "all I can say is that is some really impressive spell work! A bit frightening, but very impressive nevertheless!"

'I _know_ I'm impressive,' Sasuke thought to himself with a smirk. The Antipodean Opaleye blew a huge flame of its own, almost canceling it out. He breathed in slightly, and the flames disappeared. 'That one was close. Better make it _bigger_.'

Everyone watched as Sasuke used the same "spell" to make another flame dragon. Only, this one was much larger, rivaling the dragon itself in size. The Opaleye's vivid red flames were lost amongst a now much darker shade of blue and green.

Still working on only lung capacity, Sasuke molded his chakra and let out a sharp exhale, and his serpentine fire dragon changed its shape from a snake-like beast into a huge lance of blue and green flames that struck the dragon in the jaws. Almost completely out of breath, Sasuke gave Cedric a look before making a strange wiggly motion with his wand. He ran out of flames, but the flame left over from his previous technique became smaller darts of flame that swarmed the dragon, similar to his Katon: Housenka no Jutsu (_Fire Release: Mythical Fire Flower Technique_), only more mobile.

"What kind of technique is _that_?" Kankurou said. "Only the Uchiha clan makes fire techniques like that. How the heck did Orochimaru teach him something like _that_?"

"I don't think he did," Naruto said excitedly. "Blue is chakra, green is magic! It's unique, and not even the past Uchiha people knew it, I bet!"

Gaara watched it all with a strange expression on his face. "No hand seals. The only thing he did was move his wand a little..."

"And that little asshole didn't think to share that little tidbit with the rest of us," Kankurou said, sighing.

"_And...the Cedric-Sasuke team has the egg_!" Fudge announced.

"When did _that_ happen?" Naruto wondered.

"I didn't see that coming," Kankurou said. "Sasuke actually let Cedric get the egg for him while he fought the dragon. I would've thought he'd have tried to do it all by himself."

"Oh come on, Sasuke can trust people," the blond said enthusiastically. "Like there was that time when...er...okay, there was that other time when... um... (dangit) Okay, there was a time on our first real mission when we fought Zabuza and he figured out my plan, and then he threw me!"

"…"

"Naruto, that had to have happened at _least_ three years ago. Why not something more recent?" Gaara said.

"...Oh shut up, Gaara," he said.

Kankurou shook his head. When was the _last_ time somebody told Gaara to shut up? Well, there _was_ this one guy but... okay, who else told Gaara to shut up and _lived_ to tell the tale?

"I can't tell whether you're crazy or what," Kankurou said, "but it's Gaara's turn, and I can't remember what I was going to say..." ((okay, actually _I_ forgot what Kankurou was going to say, but... let's just say he's being stupid, yeah?))

Gaara sighed, getting to his feet and hoisting the gourd over his shoulder. As he and Viktor left the tent, a guard walked up next to them.

"I'm afraid you can't take that, uh, gourd with you, kid," the man said.

"Try me and die," Gaara said looking at him.

"Ve, ah...might be disqualified if you, um, break the rules," Viktor said.

He scowled at his partner, but he remembered the "eternal glory" and "money" prize of the tournament. This was a big thing to wizards. No need for him to ruin it for the Bulgarian seeker. He didn't need the money or glory, but it would make him seem like an asshole. Girls didn't like assholes. That's why Kankurou never got a girlfriend. Aside from the psycho girl he was currently trying to escape.

Gaara sighed, pulling the gourd off the strap and held it in the air for a moment when Viktor heard a quiet, "Cover your eyes."

He did so, and what felt like a huge gust of wind blew past him, carrying pounds of sand in the air. Shaking sand from his face, Viktor opened his eyes and saw that the gourd was gone, and the sandy-rocky field now had a new layer of a darker, reddish sand covering it. Most of the audience in the front were rubbing their eyes and crying out. Heh. Viktor looked at Gaara.

"You haff a...a 'serfs-them-right' look on your face..."

Gaara stared at Krum for a moment, looking a bit surprised. Or disappointed. "You really do know me too well," he muttered.

So he was _right_? "Vy?"

"Well, you know how I act..."

"I meant, vy is it that you haff that look on your face?"

"Oh. Because, ah...It's my inner sadist," Gaara said simply, remembering one of the many things that Naruto had joked about him. There. Now he said it. It didn't feel too funny, but if Naruto could joke about it, so could he, right? "I enjoy throwing sand in people's eyes. It causes pain and irritation."

"…"

"It was a joke."

"It did not sound like one," Viktor shrugged, waiting for the dragon to make its presence known. How well could two huge dragons hide anyway?

"Hmph."

"Vait, did you do that _vithout_ a vand?"

Gaara paused. "You have bad ears _and_ bad eyes," he said, pulling up his sleeve, shoving a wand hidden in his palm. "Be a bit more perceptive, would you?" He paused again, jerking his head as if he felt something Viktor didn't. "Hm, I suppose the dragons won't move from the nest until they're provoked... You go left, I go right."

Ordinarily, Viktor would have felt a bit discouraged at being treated as a subordinate but... when it came to forcing people to do things, Gaara was _really_ good at it. He turned around and walked forward a bit when he realized that Gaara was watching him.

No, not in a creepy stalker way.

Seeing Viktor watch the redhead keeping an eye on him, Gaara scowled. "Are you going or what?"

Viktor turned around, but not before seeing something near his feet float up in the air.

At first, it seemed to be a shiny white Snitch. Krum reached out and grabbed it instinctively when he heard Gaara shout angrily, spinning around and glaring at him with bloodlust in his face. But that wasn't what scared Viktor Krum...

It was wet, slimy, and _squishy_. Now, Viktor was by no means a terribly squeamish person, but...

...Squishing floating eyeballs in his bare hands—magical or not—was not something that most sane people here could do without feeling their stomachs lurch up to their throats.

Viktor, still holding the eyeball in shock, watched the red-haired demon of a boy twitch as he growled at him, clutching his right eye as if in pain (or great irritation). "...Get your hands _off_ my bloody eyeball and—_move now_!" The eye in his hand began to feel rough and started squirming in his grip.

Viktor opened his fist in astonishment as the eyeball seemed to drizzle from his open hand in the form of falling sand. He ducked instinctively and felt a roar of heat as flames shot from overhead, but, fortunately, some miracle took place and he realized that around him were hot shards of glass.

He saw the sand that had fallen from his hand rearrange itself in midair and shot up in the air. A moment later, the Chinese Fireball snarled, stomping angrily and spitting huge mushroom shaped flames. Viktor backed away and saw Gaara. "

"You move!" Viktor said. But _no_, Gaara _didn't_ move. Instead, he turned around and found himself facing an incoming tail.

The crowd gasped as he then flew several feet away, rolling backwards.

"_Ooh, that's gotta hurt_—!" Bagman said as Gaara rolled back onto his feet, glaring and shaking out the dirt almost casually from the curiously coincidental soft mound of sand that he landed in, looking annoyed but... altogether perfectly fine.

"_...Did it miss him_?"

A few hairline fractures on his face smoothed out, and Gaara almost leisurely continued patting sand from his clothes. He paused with an almost thoughtful expression, eyes focused on the wand in his hand. He flicked the wand. A random pile of sand in front of the dragon jumped up and fell lightly on the ground. The dragon bristled, snapping its jaws at the air, now paying much closer attention to the jumping sand rather than the infinitely more dangerous sand-controlling shinobi.

Gaara flicked the wand again, creating a much larger "jump" in the sand near the dragon several feet up in the air.

"_...And I have _no idea_ what Gaara is doing_!" Bagman announced, excited for some reason. Gaara began to twirl the wand.

Sand swirled all around the dragon in the form of a number of thin streams. The dragon snarled and snapped at the flying sand when, all of a sudden, the sand went from thing streams carried by an air current to thick ropes that tied up and forced the dragon down. Gaara immediately approached the dragon eggs in the makeshift nest at the dragon's feet, glancing through them all and picking a few up.

The dragon snarled menacingly, though its jaws were clamped shut and it was still forced to the ground. Gaara quickly scanned the nest and held one up curiously. The dragon's bright purple eyes glared at him as he did so. Nope, none of the eggs were golden in any way, shape, or form.

Gaara turned around, focusing his attention towards the Chinese Fireball that he had allowed Krum to handle himself. Viktor was currently firing narrow red beams of light over and over at the dragon, aiming for its last eye, as Gaara had blinded the right one with his sand. A lot of it.

He frowned as most spells glanced off in different directions, striking the thick scales on the ridges of its eyes. Gaara had a bad feeling about this. He ran over to Krum when the last curse hit its mark.

Now blinded and deaf from the injuries accumulated over time, the dragon roared, stomping wildly, crushing many of its own eggs and engulfing both champions in scarlet red, mushroom-like flames.

Someone in the infirmary gasped. The entire audience was almost completely silent as the dragon, as if it sensed that it had caught its attackers in its flames, continued breathing its steady stream of heat where they had been standing with its foot grounded firmly in its now-empty nest...

"That was close," Kankurou said, wiping a sweaty brow in relief, careful not to smear his face.

"What do you mean by that?" Harry asked him.

"I get it," Naruto said. "If other people are forced to enter the field before the egg is retrieved, it's probably a bad thing."

"Would they be disqualified?"

Naruto snorted. "Possible, but unlikely. If all it took was a loss to get out of the tournament, then I doubt that it would've been such a big deal about how you're in this tournament, considering how many people are betting against you."

"Kiba told you the bets?" the Boy-Who-Lived asked. "what are they?"

"Ah, you don't want to know," the blond said, scratching his head. "But let's just say...well, never mind. Yeah, you don't want to know. But we've got money on you surviving at least, so if you die on us, we are going to beat your dead body senselessly and pee on your grave."

We?

"Anyway, just watch," Naruto said, as Bagman continued to commentate on the match.

"_Good Merlin, will the medi-wizards and dragon keepers please come forward!_" he called.

The dragon keepers shot spells toward the dragon, which turned its attention to the direction of its newest attackers, and the medi-wizards stared at the _thing_ they were _supposed_ to be healing.

It was a huge reddish orb made of glass. The heat it emitted made the molten glass look worse but... it appeared to be cooling rapidly from the inside until the entire outside of the orb was completely solid.

All of a sudden, a huge spike of sand shot through the glass causing it to shatter and many medi-wizards to jump at the sound of breaking glass and the fact that some had nearly been skewered by the spike of sand.

Water gushed out as Gaara and Viktor stepped out, soaking.

"You're medi-wizards," Gaara said, "but you move and react far to slowly. Tell me, did it _occur_ to you to move the _moment_ the dragon nearly killed us?"

Viktor and Gaara headed towards the tent set up at the other end of the stadium towards the makeshift infirmary. The seeker had a light burn on his arm, and Gaara walked strangely, keeping his hand in his pocket.

"By the vay," Viktor called out before they went inside. "Ve haff the egg, if you do not already know."

"_...Merlin, I did _not_ see that coming!_" Bagman said as the magical screen zoomed in on the egg in Viktor's hand.

"How'd that happen?" Harry asked. "_When_?"

"The ero-sennin's explaining right now," Naruto said, "but don't listen to him. It's not right. What Gaara basically did use the sand to shield them both from fire..."

"I suppose he should be glad he didn't use up the whole gourd," Kankurou said thoughtfully.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Ah, it would've been a pain if he used all of the red sand to protect him instead of the sand already on the field. I mean, if he did, then it'd be a big waste. The red sand is his strongest, for reasons I'm not going to tell you. I suppose from the light red color of the glass, he's only used a few pounds of it. Not too much though, at least," Kankurou explained.

The first whistle blew. Naruto got up to his feet. "Anyway, the sand turned to glass when it got melted by the fire and stuff. While they were in there, I suppose Viktor kept it a bit cooler inside, conjuring water, while Gaara brought the egg from the nest to inside the shield from underground," he said as the second whistle blew. He twitched. Did he just hear someone screaming?

Suddenly, all of the red sand scattered through out the field shot into the entrance of the infirmary tent when something inside hit the wall of the tent, leaving a brief imprint before it smoothed out once again. Naruto and Harry traded confused glances as they walked out onto the field.

"What was that?" Harry whispered to Naruto.

"No idea," Naruto said. "But I think I heard Sakura screaming."

"Think she's in trouble?" he said more loudly, in shock of what a thug may try to do with a delicate looking girl.

"Ah, don't worry about her," Naruto said cheerfully. "Last time she hit me, I got thrown through a wall."

Harry wanted to believe that this was a joke, but knowing Naruto and his friends'...uniqueness, for lack of better word, it was probably true.

He glanced at the crowd, with its hundreds and hundreds of faces staring down at him from the stands. It all felt like a really bad dream. Harry stood there next to Naruto, feeling a bit dumb.

"Do we wait for the dragon to come at us?" Harry asked. "Or do we just go straight at it?"

"I don't think you want a dragon to try to eat you in mid-summon," Naruto said. "Get the broom now before it co—MOVE!"

Harry heard a deafening roar of the Hungarian Horntail from far away, but he saw a shadow looming over them from behind.

Naruto's Romanian Longhorn fell from the sky. It was smaller than the Horntail, and much flashier, with green scales and a glittering gold horn. As it landed, Harry felt something hit him hard in the stomach, knocking the breath out of him as the dragon landed where he had previously been standing just moments ago.

Harry sat up, trying to re-catch the breath lost when he looked up in horror, seeing Naruto trapped under the paw of the dragon. Despite the pained look on the blonde's face, the Japanese boy managed to grin, squeezing a hand up between the clawed toes of the dragon and placing a palm on the back of its paw.

"_Asshole_," he said, gritting his teeth, and a massive amount of chakra exploded from his own palm, wrapping itself like a thick tentacle up the dragon's limb and quickly making its way up to the rest of the body, spreading it out until the dragon was covered completely in this strange reddish-orange energy.

The Longhorn roared in confusion, and Naruto paused, as if not sure what to do next, now that the dragon was covered up. He narrowed his eyes and the dragon began to roar as its arm was bent almost painfully, but only just enough to move the dragon.

The moment he had enough room, Naruto shot out from under the dragon's claws, painfully rubbing his ribs, positive that he had broken at least one or two. At times like these, he was glad the Kyubi kept good care of its host (but not so much good care as Gaara's did of course).

"Are you alright?" Harry asked him.

"Did you summon the broom?" Naruto shot back almost angrily as he ran at the dragon again, weaving between its feet and occasionally using that strange red-orange claw to pull himself out of reach from the rock. He ran away from the dragon for a short moment, but before the Longhorn could turn its attention back on Harry, Naruto had jumped back from wherever he had gone.

"This one's eggs are black! The Horntail has the egg!" Naruto shouted, risking a jump from a boulder and landing on the dragon's face. "Aaah!" He pulled back the dragon's eyelids and led it snap shut and it roared, clawing at its face. "I'll take care of this one, you get the Horntail up in the air, and I'll grab the egg!"

"Right," Harry said, raising his wand. "_Accio Firebolt_!"

Everything seemed to freeze. Every fiber of him hoped and prayed, because if Naruto's plan didn't work...if his broom didn't come... And then he remembered what happened last time when he summoned the rock.

Harry shouted in surprise, letting himself fall onto his back when his Firebolt hurtled through the are and nearly struck him straight in the face. He found himself in the position much like Neo's famous Matrix pose.

The crowd was louder than ever and Bagman was shouting something on the magical microphone, but Harry's ears weren't functioning properly anymore, now focusing on what really mattered. Playing a game of quidditch with a dragon.

Then again, there was the more pressing matter. Getting the broom out of the ground. After a brief moment of useless tugging, Harry gave up and said, "_Up_." The broom flew up to his hand. ((honestly, what's the use of teaching that in their first year if it doesn't do anything? Voila, the Up thing shall now be used to dig brooms out of the ground)).

He swung a leg over the broom and kicked off the ground. Soaring upward, the faces in the crowd became mere flesh-colored pinpricks below him. He was back in the air where he belonged.

This was, after all, just a new version of quidditch. There was no almost-invisible Golden Snitch to find. There was the _Golden Egg_, just laying there on the ground for him to grab. But, of course, he needed to get the 'keeper' away from the egg, first. The dragon was just another ugly team of Slytherins. No biggie. He looked down at the clutch of eggs, easily spotting the gold one that Naruto pointed out.

Speaking of which, Naruto's orange claw was no longer an ordinary manifestation of a claw. It was a fox itself. And a huge one, it was.

The chakra shaped fox became dozens of chains, much like Gaara's chains, and forced the dragon down to the ground. Naruto really was a match for the huge reptilian monster.

Naruto grinned, giving him a 'V' sign.

"Okay," Harry said, now able to focus on the eggs tucked safely between the dragon's front legs. "Like Naruto said, I distract, he gets it. Yeah."

He dove down at it, and the dragon's head followed him. He needed only to briefly glance at the dragon's eyes to know what it was going to do and pulled out in time to narrowly avoid the fifty-foot flames. It was like a bludger, and this was a practice match.

No, even easier. This was a sparring match between himself and the Japanese students, only, much to Harry's surprise... This was _much_ easier than anything that Sasuke and the others had thrown his way, _including_ the shuriken-dodging sessions.

"_Great Scott, he can fly! Are you watching this, Mr. Krum?_"

Harry flew up higher. Naruto was distracting the Horntail again. The Longhorn was beginning to recover from Naruto's attack and bristled angrily. The blonde shot a Stinging hex at the dragon, hitting it in the eye as Harry soared higher in the sky with the Horntail's eyes following his every move. Still, better not push this on for too long or else the Horntail might—

Harry dove out of the way, just in time to avoid the flames that had suddenly shot out of its mouth. And then he ran into the dragon's tail. Or rather, one of the long spikes, which came whipping up at him. He felt it graze his shoulder, ripping through his robes.

Put off balance, Harry nearly had a very sudden, direct confrontation with the ground. Fortunately, with almost catlike reflexes that he didn't know he had, he managed to swing himself off the broom and landed heavily on his feet with the Firebolt in hand.

He could feel the stinging in his arm and hear the groans and the excitement erupting from the crowd, but that wasn't important. He needed to get back up in the air.

The tail swung at him again. Unable to lift off on his broom soon enough, Harry decided to attempt the impossible. He closed his eyes and jumped up as high as he could. Something slammed into him.

Surprisingly enough, it wasn't spiky or really painful. But his collision with the ground was enough to daze him slightly. Harry looked back to see what had thrown him out of the way of danger to see an orange claw-like hand where he was in the air. Naruto spared a moment from the Longhorn to grin at Harry. A very Naruto-like thing to do, as this moment of frivolity nearly cost him his head as Naruto ducked to avoid a huge talon that his dragon had swung at his head.

Harry jumped back into the air, flying in erratic zigzags to avoid giving the Horntail decent enough time to breathe the fire and catch him off guard again.

He went higher, and the dragon reached out for him. Harry took note of the distance of it reach, being careful to remain just out of its reach. It shot fire constantly in hopes of catching him, but the fire had a linear path and Harry avoided the heat easily.

Finally, it reared up on its hind legs, spreading the huge black leathery wings like a bat at last. The dragon took flight and followed him up to the air. Harry chanced a moment to remove his good arm from the broom to take out his wand and sound off an alert for Naruto to get away from the Longhorn and go for the egg.

This alert had nearly gotten him eaten by a dragon, Harry dully noticed as he let himself suddenly drop straight down to the ground as the dragon passed overhead by just a few feet, snapping its jaws. Not that Harry was too worried about the dragon.

Naruto had sped across the field at an almost impossible speed and snatched the egg up in his hand.

It was all over!

Harry dropped to the ground on his feet and high-fived Naruto, who was laughing and scratching his head and, all of a sudden, screaming in a very unmanly manner.

He and Naruto ran for the safety of the tent as both the enraged Hungarian Horntail and the Romanian Longhorn flew after them.

* * *

Harry and Naruto ran into the infirmary laughing like madmen. 

"You did it!" Sakura said triumphantly. "You're one of the fastest! Tied with Gaara, too!" She hugged him tightly. Naruto squirmed in her grasp.

"Sakura...ribs...breaking...argh..."

The girl laughed, releasing Naruto from her grip on him. The tent was divided into cubicles. Cedric glanced up at him and smiled. Harry grinned back. Not that he wasn't grinning already. It was hard to stop grinning when the adrenaline in him was pumping so hard.

"Oh yeah, cut," Naruto said, pulling out what appeared to be a spray paint can.

"What is—OW?-!"

Naruto sprayed the can over Harry's arm. It smoked and stung, but it healed almost instantly.

"Hinata gave it to me," he explained. "I use this thing everywhere!"

Neji, who was sitting next to Fleur by the entrance, frowned. "Speaking of which, _stop hiding_."

Huh?

Hinata poked a head out from the flap of the tent, peaking inside. "H-h-hi..." she stuttered.

"Oh, come on," Sakura said, pulling Hinata in impatiently.

Naruto and Hinata stared at each other.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"… Hi?"

Hinata blushed and fell over. Sakura couldn't help but laugh at the Hyuga girl and pulled her over to a bed next to...

"Gaara!" Naruto exclaimed, pointing a finger in the Kazekage's face.

"What?" the angry looking redhead said...angrily. Viktor Krum was busy staring as solemnly as possible at a corner. However, it seemed that he was trying to contain his laughter and was barely succeeding.

Gaara, who hadn't even been touched by the dragons, had a black eye.

"What the heck? I thought when the tail whacked you across the field, you had the armor on," Naruto said.

"I _did_," Gaara said.

"Then what happ—?"

"_Nothing_," was the angry response.

All of a sudden, Viktor coughed. Well, it didn't even sound like a cough. He had laughed out loud. This was met by a solemn silence. Everyone waited, to see whether Gaara was going to kill him for laughing or not. He looked as if he was going to, but Sakura started laughing too.

Soon, almost everyone in the room was laughing.

"What?" Naruto said. "I'm funny. But I don't get it. What's the joke?"

"Well," Sasuke said with a smirk, "Gaara didn't have his whole sand back yet and Sakura had freaked out because she thought Gaara was hurt or something after the dragon attack. You know, with his shield and armor and sand being all rusty from the last time he was killed. And, well, Sakura punched him and he flew into the wall."

"So _that's_ why all the sand flew over here..." Naruto said in amazement.

"Pssh, yeah," the Uchiha boy said. "And not only that, but he _had_ managed to get his shield up. But it was too thin. So the thing is, _she_ didn't hit him. _His own sand_ did."

"I'm going to kill you when you sleep," Gaara warned.

"Oh come on, Sakura was the one who _hit_ you in the first place."

"And I'm really sorry?" she said, still laughing.

The kazekage covered his face in... embarrassment? Irritation? Weariness? Naruto would have felt sorry for him if it hadn't been for the fact that he was too busy laughing at his friend.

"Shut up, Naruto."

"No."

"Isn't anyone going to even _watch_ Kankurou's task?" Sakura wondered.

"Does anyone care?" the Kazekage retorted.

"...You might. I think your sister is on the field."

"_What_?"

* * *

Tenten was sitting relatively peacefully in her seat, eating some of Anko's sugar quills when Anko suddenly grabbed Snape and began to run. 

"Where are you going?" Tenten called after them, but Anko didn't say anything as she continued to drag the annoyed Potions master away. Something behind her flashed like a camera.

"YOSH! TENTEN, IS HAS BEEN SO LONG SINCE I HAVE LAST SEEN YOU!"

Oh...god...

"Hi...Lee..." she said weakly to her teammate as he flashed her (with his teeth) again. So _that's_ why Anko left so quickly... It made sense. The woman could hardly stand _Gai's _presence and now the smaller one had returned.

"WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOUR YOUTHFUL SPIRIT?-!" he all but shrieked. ((someone requested that I give him a few appearances so here it is))

"...Are you calling me _old_?" she asked scathingly.

He gasped. "OF COURSE NOT! YOU JUST SEEM SO DEPRESSED!"

"_WHO ARE YOU CALLING DEPRESSED JUST BECAUSE SHE BROKE UP WITH HER BOYFRIEND!_" she shouted.

Lee stared at her. "Again?"

Tenten groaned and buried her face in her hands. "Yes. _Again._"

Lee sat down next to her in an almost normal way, which really surprised Tenten. "I see."

She gasped to herself. No caps lock!

And then Lee's ordinary side returned once again, louder than ever. "**_I WISH YOU AND NEJI GOOD LUCK AND THAT YOU BOTH GET BACK TOGETH_**—yoush!"

Tenten angrily smacked Lee to the side, hoping that everything Lee said wouldn't get back to Neji, who was currently in the makeshift infirmary at the end of the field. Kankurou was currently on the field, but no one really seemed to care.

"I'm sorry," Tenten said sincerely to the two people in front of her. She stared at them once she got a good look at the both of them. Both of them were Asian. Not that it meant anything. Asian people weren't necessarily equivalent to shinobi. The taller one was more muscular than the girl sitting next to him. He had narrow eyes, from what they could see behind the purple sunglasses, and most of his dark hair was hidden under a fur hat. Well, he didn't _look_ Durmstrang-ish... maybe the hat was just "in" for real Asians. Just as tye-dye T-shirts, bucket hats, and black sunglasses were in for the girls.

...Yeah.

"That's alright," the man said with a grin. "We get weirdoes thrown at us every day!"

"...Really?" Tenten said incredulous.

"No. But saying so will make things a bit more casual, right?" He grinned.

"You're not much of a lady killer, Zein..." the girl said.

"Yeah I am," this 'Zein' said, all but leaning on the girl when Tenten felt a strange presence make itself known.

The girl looked absolutely delighted to find a creepy looking man standing next to her. Tenten blinked. She hadn't even seen him appear. She hadn't even heard the tale-tell sound of a '_crack!_' to even hint at an Apparate. Which could mean only one thing.

These people were shinobi?

Seeing the two people standing behind this newcomer, Tenten couldn't help but fall over with a 'duh'. It was Mariku and Mikoto from Gaara's shop.

Tenten quickly pulled Lee back into the seat next to them.

"So," Tenten said casually, yet in a low voice as she kept an eye on the people in the seat in front of her. "Lee. What've you been up to lately. And I swear, if you shout in all caps, I will beat the flame out of you..."

"Yosh! Gai-sensei is starring in commercials! Producers really love him! And Chouji's developing the wizarding wireless network. It's massive. We've been working with hundreds of other wizards for this...!" Lee jabbered on and on, though Tenten wasn't really listening, more interested in the conversation happening in front of her. The conversation that was going on without a single sound.

The hippie girl with the sunglasses was making signs with her hands, and the dark vampire-looking guy was responding in kind.

"Um..." Mariku frowned. "How did you two get out to come here anyway?"

"Luluuuuu..." the girl said with a dopey grin.

"What Mad means is—"

The Makotos' assistant... like, Tobi or something...? Yeah, Tenten remembered. Tobi. The name didn't really fit him, but oh well. Tobi stared at the man with the fur hat like he was crazy. "_Mad_?"

"Yeah! It's short for—mrbblt!"

Tobi had immediately covered up his mouth. "Whatever. Who are you?"

"I'm Zane," he said. "That is, of course, just an assumed name."

"Alright, _Zane_, tell me this," Tobi said, with a gleam in his eye that looked like he would like nothing more to strangle this man. "WHY THE HELL DID YOU DRESS MADO…_MAD_ IN... IN _HIPPIE CLOTHES_!"

"Shh," Zane said. "Mad doesn't know."

Mad reached out wildly and managed to smack Zane in the back of the head. "Hey! Why am I a hippie!"

"Ah, well, I suppose she knows now," Zane said. Tobi glared at him. "Well, it was all I had, unless you wanted her wearing some of Misses Cissy's fancy shmancy lingerie. Or better yet, _Mister Lucy's man-clothes_."

"Not funny, you," he said. "And why the hell are you here anyway?"

"We're here under disguise. You see, Lulu's not letting us out. So we decided to sneak out during one of his business thingies. Get a bit of fresh air..." Zane said. He smelled the fire. "Or smoke."

"Augh! KANKUROU HAS BEEN EATEN!" Lee exclaimed.

"What?" Mad asked.

"WHAT?" the Makotos screeched. Mikoto looked as if she was about to faint. "What the hell does that ass think he's doing? He's _breaking_ her!"

"What's going on?" Mad asked Tobi.

"The dragon is chewing on Kankurou," Tobi said bluntly.

"Not _Kankurou_," Mariku said. "It's _Ka-chan_!"

"Who's Ka—?"

* * *

Aaaaaaah! The Makotos were going to _kill_ him! Hidden beneath Gaara's invisibility cloak, he watched as Okaasan, or as the Makoto's called it, Ka-chan, got chewed on. The puppet wasn't hard to disguise. He wasn't wasting valuable chakra to cover its face. All he had to do was give her—_it_ a spare hat, dab a bit of makeup—...FACE PAINT on, and voila. A puppet of himself. And even better yet, there were no strings attached. 

He could hear the audience groaning. It had already been a few minutes since he started the task. He could grab the egg now... except for the little thing called money and life that Gaara had offered him to last longest against the dragon. A possible setback when it came to the tournament in general, but for his life and twenty thousand yen to 'fail' the task, it wasn't so bad.

Aside from the constant death threats, sometimes, it was nice having an insane, rich little brother.

Kankurou had previously decided on letting Ka-chan do all the work, and then he'd sweep in with the invisibility cloak and grab the egg once the time was over—ten minutes was the time he had to beat.

But, of course, the worst had to happen and the dragon chomped on his puppet.

Ka-chan let out a yelp and shouted, struggling to free her leg. Tearing it out from between the teeth, her leg ripped and her hat fell off, revealing shoulder length sand-colored hair.

"_Wait a minute..._" Bagman said over the microphone. "_Why didn't anyone tell me Kankurou was a girl?_"

"Because that's a puppet," Jiraiya said. "Look at the leg. It's cracked open and not an ounce of blood."

"_Is that even _allowed?"

"It's allowed," Jiraiya said in a voice so casual that it was hard to believe that he was lying. Therefore everybody believed him.

Kankurou swore, removing the invisibility cloak. He waved his wand at Ka-chan, though secretly manipulating the doll with his left hand, and she froze. Suddenly, she was hidden in some sort of blue gas. The dragon coughed on her and fell over.

"Hah," Kankurou said. "_Accio Golden Egg_!"

"..." The crowd stared at him. Well... _that_ was rather anticlimactic.

"Hah! I didn't get a single scra—!" Kankurou was jogging easily toward the infirmary tent with Ka-chan in hand when a huge fist made of sand slammed into his face. He landed on his back and found his younger brother standing above him with his arms crossed.

"Well," Gaara said, pointing at the human-sized doll with a missing leg. "What is that thing?"

"It's Karura," Kankurou corrected him, rubbing his cheek where Gaara's hand had hit him.

"And don't you address me as 'that thing'," Karura said, shaking a finger at him.

"Don't _you_ speak down to me like you're my mother," the kazekage replied. "Kankurou, if this thing is _hitokugutsu_, I'm not going to even use you're blood. I will bury you under the sand beneath the _Black__ Lake_—"

"Relaaax," Kankurou said, backing away nervously, despite his casual words. "She's not a human puppet. Hitokugutsu is a form of the Kugutsu no Jutsu, which makes a puppet that can contain and use chakra. But this one's different. Sasori made a _living_ human into a marionette. Removing and disposing the guts, peeling off the skin, and drawing out the blood. And then you preserve and install whatever the hell you want. The puppet will have the same amount of chakra the living person had while alive. _Karura_, on the other hand, is just an ordinary puppet with a chakra bead like Naruto's bracelet. All I've got to do is attach a thread, let it charge for an hour, and she'll run for an hour."

"Don't you talk about me like I'm not here!" Karura said.

"Ah, and the Makotos decided to give her a personality like theirs, since they didn't know what our mother acted like," Kankurou said. "So instead of being a puppet imitating our mother—"

"Not imitating. _Being_!"

"—We instead have a puppet pretending to be our mother yet acting like Mikoto. Or Mariku. It doesn't matter because they're almost exactly the same anyway," Kankurou said. "Rather horrible, so I usually keep her in the scroll as long as possible."

"Alright, I'm not going to complain about the scroll, but can't you sometimes put me by the window? I hate the foot of your bed and your feet _stink_."

"You don't have lungs, what do _you_ know?"

"I know that your feet stink!"

"Shut up, you!"

"No you shut up!"

"You shut up!"

"You shut up..."

Gaara covered his ears. The Makoto, it seemed, were doing their best to infect others with whatever disease it was that they had. They were successful. Kankurou continued arguing with his doll when Gaara heard Bagman speaking.

(start stutter) "The judges are making their announcements," (end stutter) Hinata said. ((A/N: I don't feel like going through all of it right now, so here's all of it.))

F Delacour, N Hyuga  
O Maxime: 9  
B Crouch: 6  
A Dumbledore: 7  
L Bagman: 6  
I Karkaroff: 5  
? Jiraiya: 10  
Total Score: 43

C Diggory, S Uchiha  
O Maxime: 7  
B Crouch: 8  
A Dumbledore: 9  
L Bagman: 6  
I Karkaroff: 5  
? Jiraiya: 8  
Total Score: 43

V Krum, G Sabaku  
O Maxime: 9  
B Crouch: 7  
A Dumbledore: 8  
L Bagman: 7  
I Karkaroff: 10  
? Jiraiya: 7  
Total Score: 48

H Potter, N Uzumaki  
O Maxime: 8  
B Crouch: 9  
A Dumbledore: 9  
L Bagman: 10  
I Karkaroff: 4  
? Jiraiya: 8  
Total Score: 48

K Sabaku  
O Maxime: 8  
B Crouch: 6  
A Dumbledore: 8  
L Bagman: 5  
I Karkaroff: 5  
? Jiraiya: 8  
Total Score: 40

Kankurou looked a bit annoyed, last by three points, but everything was altogether fine. Except for the spy in the bushes. All six of the shinobi exchanged glances and casually headed for the clump of trees when a witch leaped out at them.

"CongratulationsIwonderifyoucouldgivemeaquickword?" Rita Skeeter said to them in a fast voice. "Howyoufeltfacingthatdragon? Howyoufeel_now_,aboutthefairnessofthescoring?"

Naruto feigned fear of the witch and jump kicked her. He soared over a surprised Rita's head and landed behind her, but not before tossing a small black bag at her in midair.

Rita screamed as Naruto bug-bombed her with the Makoto's bug killing gas.

"Isn't that dangerous?" Kankurou wondered.

"Who cares?" Sasuke snickered.

Ah, victory was sweet.

* * *

"WE'RE THE BEEEEST!" Naruto cheered with the other Gryffindors as they celebrated in the common room. 

The moment Harry had left the stadium, he had gone to the Owlery to send a letter to his family. Later, when Naruto, Harry, Hermione, Kiba, and Hinata had gotten back to the common room, Kiba warned Harry about the surprise party and, sure enough, they were greeted by the Gryffindor common room, with mountains of cakes and flagons of pumpkin juice and butterbeer everywhere. The air was thick with stars and sparks and the walls were covered with decorative banners.

(start stutter) "Why is Cedric's head on fire...?" (end stutter) Hinata wondered.

"Who cares about Cedric's head?" Naruto said to her with a grin on his face as he offered her a bottle of butterbeer. "I'm asking Dean to make one with Sasuke's head!"

"WHO WANTS TO OPEN IT?" Kiba shouted to the crowd, with Akamaru barking loudly over the commotion. They all cheered affirmatively, and Kiba tossed the heavy egg to Harry, which almost knocked him into the crowd. Harry wondered vaguely how Kiba had gotten it out of his trunk.

With the crowd's roar of approval, Harry cracked open the Golden Egg when—

The moment he opened it, the most horrible noise, a loud and screechy wailing, filled the room. The nearest thing to it Harry had ever heard was the ghost orchestra at Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party in his second year.

"Dammit!" Kiba swore, clamping his hands on his ears. Akamaru whined, hiding his head under his paws. "Make them shut up!"

Harry slammed it shut as it was before, much to the relief of everyone in the room.

"Someone can _not_ sing," Naruto groaned, trying to shake the ringing out of his ears

"Maybe it's a banshee!"

"Someone's being tortured! They'll use the Cruciatus on you!"

"Don't be stupid, that's illegal."

"So is importing dragons."

"It sounded a bit like Percy singing... maybe you've got to attack him while he's in the shower..."

"Bloody hell," someone said. "What was _that_?"

It was Ron. All of Gryffindor now knew of Ron's 'falling out'. The entire room went silent.

"How about a little bit of privacy for them, eh?" one of the twins said to the crowd. Well, the crowd backed up a little bit, at least, though most wanted to stay to see what Ron was going to do.

"Harry," Ron said, in a very serious voice. "Whoever...whoever put your name in that goblet—I—I reckon they're trying to do you in!"

"Caught on, have you?" Harry said coldly. "It took you long enough..."

"Honestly," Naruto agreed in a much more lighthearted voice. "I mean seriously, we've already established that _weeks_ ago!"

"Well it's not _my_ fault," Ron said defensively. "_Everyone_ was saying it..."

...Everyone turned around and pretended right then and there not to be listening. That rat.

"You stupid little boys!" Hermione said, suddenly starting bawl loudly as she latched herself onto her two best friends. People started backing further away from them.

"There's nothing to cry about," Harry told her, completely bewildered, not sure what to do. Ron patted her awkwardly on the back and the two boys met eyes for a brief moment.

'Psycho,' Ron mouthed, making swirly motions next to his head. Harry snorted and shook his head.

Tonight had been proof of many things. Naruto was just as skilled as he claimed to be. He and Harry were tied for first place, which, considering it was only a three-task tournament, was a pretty decent advantage. He had his best friend back, so no matter what the Slytherins did, he could stand whatever they threw at him now.

And best of all, he saw Naruto blow a bug-bomb in Rita Skeeter's manly face.

* * *

**My Thinking Corner **

I'm sure that someone somewhere out there is wondering why the OCs are talking so loudly and don't really care whether people hear them or not. That's because it almost doesn't. I'm not going to explain it much though. In fact, I'm not explaining at all.

I'm sooooorry! I have done the unthinkable! I have... _read someone else's NaHP crossover_! (gasp) But don't worry, I have not gotten _any_ ideas from it! Actually, I didn't really even like it too much. I mean, like, the _OCs_! Noooo! But, uh... now that I think about it, I have three...wait, no, more than that. Mad, Kuro, Mako3 and Giji and Ai... that's seven (sweatdrops) Well...at least they aren't main characters, right? (falls over in embarrassment) Man, I'm such a stupid hypocrite.

Anyway, sorry about not updating in a while. My parents are saying only two hours on weekdays. Not nearly enough. Of course, with all the studying I've been doing recently, it almost doesn't matter. Urgh, I'm gonna diiiieee! Also, I've had a flash flood recently. Too many ideas. I have seven and a half crossover stories in mind. Half as in this one is halfway over. I'm not sure what to work on, while I had trouble working on this one's dragon scenes, so I ended up working on roughdrafts for two kinds of FMA crossovers (one of the crossover splits into three other ideas) and a bit of another crossover. What the other half of the FMA crossover is, I'm not saying. And the other crossover... yeah. Okay, I'm sure I must've confused a lot of you. I think I just confused myself as well.

Also, sometimes, in reviews, someone would say, "I KNOW YOU'RE A GUY/GIRL BECAUSE YOU WRITE LIKE ONE", and sometimes in review responses, I "say", "You're right, I _am_ a guy/girl." ((no, when I say that, I don't mean both)) Weeell... anyone whose guess I have confirmed to be correct...uh... well you see, sometimes when I start my review responses, I get reeeaallly tired. I mean, writing a 20 page minimum chapter...okay, since not all are 20 pages, I'll say an average of about 10000 words a chapter, and THEN an average of about 30 reviews per chapter really poops me. As in makes me tired. Not as in dropping me in the toilet. ANYWAY, so every once in a while, I pass out in front of the computer ((no, not really, I just fall onto the couch and fall asleep or go to my room)) and let my sister take over in answering reviews that don't ask questions that she doesn't know the answer to. I'm not sure if she types so much like me that people can't tell the difference, but sometimes, she just confirms my sex, whether it's right or wrong. So no, I'm not transexual.

Anyway, I'm still looking for a good fic to read. I tried to do some character sketches... It went horribly, actually.

I also really want to see what the Wizards use for internet exactly, and what purpose the mirror that Sirius gave Harry will play and who's going to die. Anyway, I just finished reading chapter 315 of the naruto manga, and I'm like, "HELL YEAH! NARUTO'S LEARNING ALL THE THINGS I ALREADY PLANNED FOR HIM! IN THE SAME WAY TOO!" And then I fall over… I'm not original... (sob) Okay, I'm not sure about the exact technique, but the element and the way he's going to learn it is the same. Awesome, I guess... yeah...

* * *

**Dragonblack**: the fourth worst...? Now I'm REALLY scared…Monkeys...  
**sabaku no mizu**: You sound like the shadow is an INSULT? Wow...didn't know that...  
**A fan of HP/Naruto crossovers**: I like to make Naruto not retarded. He's smarter than what people take him for.  
**Shaddow-Sess-Marlfox**: Caaake! Everybody loves cake! (and cakes have layers). I like parfaits too...And I know, I was just picking at all the things I could, whether it was sensible of me to or not. But I still support my shotgun-wielding hobo. And yes, that is a bit violent, haha.  
**k**: (nice name by the way, haha) Yup. On June 6, 2006, while Christians and religious people everywhere were like, "the world is going to eeeeeend!", people in China and Malaysia were getting married left and right! And I was just laughing, because I'm not a superstitious person.  
**Dual**: (rasengan...?) Haha, actually, the wands... yeah, I had an idea like that actually.  
**Anonymous**: Revelations... I've been trying to get someone to describe something about this fic like that for ages. You made my day! Haha. And as for how far he'd go... HAHA!  
**Too lazy to get an account...**: Yeah, she did (thank the gods). And voila! I updatedon the weekend!  
**darkflame**: Wiki flawed? Huh? Anyway, I just wanted to make a small funny scene, showing that Neji is like, "ugh...(shudder) that pedophile man..." Okay, not really, okay yes really... That small part was just for slight humor purposes. Yeah.  
**Amandana**: Ugh, how embarrassing...  
**set jerro**: Oooh okay. Thanks! (kinda embarrassed at misunderstanding that as well. Though the food fight in chapter 25 WAS inspired by you by the way!  
**celtic-pride**: haha, thanks!  
**black shredder**: Thanks, I liked the naruto-party.  
**aznelements**: Yup, I gave him a slightly bigger role. Cho Chang? Well I don't really care about her too much. She's only there for him to like. Them, I guess. She'll make a few small appearances, but...yeah. Ironically, you reviewed the same day I'm going to post. Yeah. And yeah, I'm sure you've read it more than I have, because (aside from reading it as I type) I've only re-read the first chapter. That's all. And for your sudden revelation for the first task incident... secret! 


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28: Interlude to Terror  
Enter... the _Yule Ball_ ((dun-dun-duuuun))

Harry had gotten up early. It was exactly twelve hours and forty-two minutes after the first task and the euphoria from the battle against dragons still made him feel dizzy. Staring at the clock, which said it was six thirty in the morning, Harry felt extremely relieved and somewhat amazed that he had gotten through it in one piece. Especially after Naruto read to him several articles and books written by victims of first-hand dragon attacks.

In fact, he was surprised _Naruto_ got out in one piece, considering the fact that a dragon had pounded down on him with its talon and stood on him with its full weight. How Naruto got by with a few scratches and a lightly bruised chest was completely lost by Harry.

And how Naruto managed to lie to his friends by saying that the dragon had only 'grazed' him when the dragon didn't even slash at him with talons (it _stepped_ on him for goodness sake!) was even more puzzling.

Why Naruto had lied to his friends in the first place, he did not know. And for some reason, Harry was positive that he didn't _want_ to know. Because if Naruto could merely brush them off and for others to simply believe how little damage Naruto could sustain from a crushing weight, he really wasn't sure whether he wanted to know just how strong all of them were without holding back.

In any case, Harry, who was feeling restless for some odd reason, had worked up his courage and headed for the owlery with a letter to the Makotos, demanding more and clearer explanations for the dragon summonings and the strange necklace that he wore on his neck.

Out in the hallways, he saw a girl wearing a bucket hat that he had seen Vernon wearing for fishing trips and an older man with purple sunglasses and a fur hat. The older teen was running down the halls laughing and exploring room by room leading the girl by the hand as she laughed and stared straight ahead as if she weren't even seeing any of it.

It must have snowed earlier that morning... With the white powder crunching beneath his feet, he headed towards the Owlery and spotted the Beauxbatons huge horse carriages and the Durmstrang ship. Shivering in the cold, he pulled his cloak closer to his neck, glad he wasn't them. He wondered just how many warming charms they had in their quarters, if they had so many at all. The Durmstrang ship seemed to teeter dangerously on the dark waters of the Black Lake as the wind blew it back and forth.

Harry sent Hedwig out with his letter. It probably wouldn't take long for him to receive a response, but he wasn't willing to wait up in the tower just for a response. He headed back the stairs, deciding to return to the Gryffindor common room and see if anyone else was awake enough to hang out with when, in front of the huge door, he froze in his spot, sensing something... strange. Something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up...

Something that was falling and shouting at him.

"GET OUTTA THE WAY!"

Harry looked straight up to see Sasuke coming down the tower, practically running down the wall, at an alarming rate. Straight down at Harry.

"HOLY—" Harry regained his senses and stepped to the side, instinctively covering his face when the dark haired Japanese student landed right where Harry had previously been standing. Harry was surprised by the catlike grace in which Sasuke fell, though he didn't have much time to think about it.

"Oh... hey, Potte—" Sasuke froze in mid-sentence, looking pale and shocked, his eyes in an uncharacteristic O.o. Harry looked back over his shoulder and saw nothing. He turned back to the Uchiha.

"What—"

"GYAAAAAH!" Sasuke shouted, jumping up and down as if his feet were burning.

It was then that Harry realized that the Uchiha was clad in nothing but his sleeping clothes—barefooted and sleeveless in ankle-deep snow. Sasuke jumped up and down for several moments, trying to find the most shallow end of it and was dismayed to find that to avoid the most of the cold, he had to jump onto the railing.

"...You're awfully not serious today," Harry said uncertainly.

"Yeah, well it seems I always end up acting like an idiot when Ino is around," he grumbled angrily.

"Ino—?"

"Saaaaasuke-kuuuun!" a girl cried from the top of the tower, he voice barely hearable in the wind. "The coast is clear again! You can come back up now!" It was Ino, shouting down from and sticking her head out of the Gryffindor tower window.

Sasuke held his hands around his mouth to make a makeshift hand-megaphone. "I JUST _LANDED_ ALL THE WAY AT THE BOTTOM! THE STONE CASTLE WALLS ARE _SNOWY_ AND _ICY_ AND _COLD_! AND I AM _NOT_ RUNNING BACK UP THE SIDE OF THE BLOODY TOWER UNLESS YOUR NAME IS RAPUNZEL AND YOU'VE GOT A 500-METER BRAID!"

"Okaaay!" Ino shouted back down to him.

"You _jumped_ down from the window?" Harry asked him.

"Is it time for breakfast?" Sasuke wondered.

"Er, yeah, but before you go, you might want to change clothes," Harry said, eyeing Sasuke's sleeping clothes.

"Oh yeah..." Sasuke said, rubbing his arms and feet for more friction. "Damn, it _snows_ here..."

Sasuke ran inside. On the front of his T-shirt read "PROPERTY OF INO YAMANAKA" in fancy blue letters, and on the back in red was, "SO HANDS OFF MY SASUKE-KUN!"

------------------

Draco Malfoy woke up early as always. What his fellow Slytherins described as the insane hours of the day, he thought of them as the perfect time to perfect his beautiful silky blond hair. As usual, that weird Gaara Sabaku was lounging in the Slytherin common room, his arms crossed in front of his chest and his eyes closed. Did that guy ever sleep?

Thank Merlin that Sasuke Uchiha had left later in the night with his Gryffindor girlfriend to join the much more festive Gryffindor house party. Draco couldn't understand why. Why choose butterbeer over _wine_? The Gryffindors probably had a huge disgustingly chaotic feast, while Slytherins had a much more formal gathering involving wine and _proper_ meals. Those Gryffindors... they probably had _oatmeal_. Or even worse...

_Hamburgers_.

Muggle _and_ American. Those Gryffindors were barbarians.

Draco sleeked his hair back. Ah, perfect. Much neater than that holier-than-thou Uchiha.

Unlike that dark-haired Mudblood sympathizer, Draco Malfoy _worked_ for perfection. He left the bathroom and found that creepy redhead-Sabaku quickly shutting a box.

Hm, his fashion senses were tingling. He could detect in that box, high quality silk, but he chose not to say anything in case he ruined Sabaku's surprisingly docile mood.

Come to think of it, despite Draco's morning ritual, Gaara had not once spoken or done anything aggressive towards him, like how he often did in the daytime.

"Don't you ever sleep?" Draco asked. Ooh, that was the exact wrong thing one should ever say to Gaara...

"Don't you ever go a day without obsessing ridiculously over your hair?" the redhead snapped back at him.

Okaaay, it seemed that Gaara, like the other Japanese students, continued to hate him for some unknown reason. Once again, tense silence reigned supreme in the room.

Gaara frowned. "If your comment on my sleeping habits was not offensive, then neither was my comment on your hair."

Ah-hah! An opening! "Of course, my comment was mean to be purely conversational," he said with a nod.

"And mine was meant to be advice in disguise," the redhead said. He closed his eyes and began to recite a "On the October of _Witch Weekly_, they suggest that when you shampoo your hair, concentrate on the roots and rinse it two times—once with cold water, and again with warm. Never hot. Hot can be damaging. And cold water seals in the shine. Then, condition the ends of your hair, so you don't get things like split ends. Let it sit in your hair for six minutes and then rinse out with lukewarm water."

...What the fuck?

"Startling advice coming from someone who—"

Gaara glared at him. "_If you are going to say I shave my eyebrows, wear eyeliner, and tattoo my forehead, I will desecrate your mutilated body WHILE YOU STILL LIVE_."

"…"

Gaara took a deep breath. "My eyebrows are natural, the marks around my eyes are unavoidable, and the character on my forehead was cut into it—therefore also unavoidable."

"…"

Draco paused for a moment, and then he suddenly leaned forward, poking Gaara's forehead.

"…"

Gaara's angry silence as Draco prodded his forehead went unnoticed, while Draco was lost in thought. The scar coincidentally resembling a strange Chinese character. In the same spot as Pothead's scar. Red hair. Green eyes. Gaara and Harry had the same number of letters, as did Sabaku and Potter! (not that it actually meant anything, but coincidences are coincidences, right?)

That's it! Gaara Sabaku was the evil version of what Harry Potter could have been! ((yeah, right))

"If you do not remove your finger from my forehead, I will proceed to breaking your arm off and beating you to death with it," Gaara said in an exaggeratedly calm voice.

The evil Harry Potter! Draco backed away from Gaara and inched out of the room. The moment he left the Slytherin common room, he ran for his life.

After he sensed Gaara's strange presence dissipate, Draco wandered in the hallways. That Gaara Sabaku guy... whenever you were in a twenty foot radius of him, you could always seem to feel some strange feeling of fear. It was an almost natural thing, around Gaara. Draco couldn't imagine how he could have such a large group of close friends. Then again, the majority of his friends in the Slytherin house were just as evil as him, and Gryffindors _were_ known for their courage. And stupidity. The Ravenclaws, however, had absolutely no reason to be able to stand the odd "repellence".

So all in all, the fact that Gaara had friends who weren't as evil as he or extremely stupid was very odd. Especially considering that he had many fangirls in all houses.

Walking around the halls, Draco realized it was not yet even seven. They wouldn't even be serving breakfast yet. Sighing, he walked through the hallways. Luckily, he had had the foresight to change his clothes immediately after he had done his hair. ((btw, _yes,_ the 2 had's _are_ grammatically correct!))

He heard someone laughing in the hallways. Looking around, there was no one there. Nervously, Draco continued walking forward. There it was again! Someone was laughing...

He strode up the stairs, looking for the source of the laughter just out of curiosity. How many people woke up this early on a day in which all classes were cancelled? Suddenly, in mid-step, someone ran into him, nearly knocking him down the steps.

"Ngeeeh!"

"Aaargh!" Draco glared at the girl who had knocked him back out into the corridors. "What the bloody hell are you doing running around in the dark with sunglasses?" he demanded.

"Zein? No? Sorry," the girl said. She rearranged her sunglasses and continued stumbling down the stairs. "Ouch!"

"You wouldn't happen to be related to Shino Aburame, would you?" Draco asked.

"The Aburames? Creepy, no."

"Rock Lee?"

"Who?"

"Anko Mitarashi?"

"Ooh, I've heard of her. No."

"The Uchihas?"

"Very very distantly. I did know one though. And I heard about another. They're scary. A bit closer to the Hyugas though. I think. Like, ten centuries ago, we were part of the same family. Of course, that goes for a fifty bajillion other people. ...In fact, I'm probably not related to them at all. Do I _know_ you?"

"Are you a pureblood?"

"Yes?"

"Then possibly."

"My friend calls me Mad. Or Iso. Sometimes Miso..." she said with a grin. "But since I don't know you, it's Ishidoro to you!"

"I'm Malfoy. Dr—"

"_Malfoy_?" The girl suddenly began to laugh loudly.

"Don't laugh at my name," he said angrily. Ishidoro kept on laughing. "Seriously, quit it. It's not _that_ funny."

She continued to giggle softly, muttering words that made no sense when phrased together. "Haha, no, it's just that... I remember... it's ironic...Lulu!" She laughed again.

"..._Okay_," Draco said uncertainly. "Just what house are you in? And tell me it's not Ravenclaw." _If so, they're getting stupider as years go by..._

"This isn't a house, it's a castle," Ishidoro said.

Definitely not Ravenclaw. Perhaps Gryffindor. Or Hufflepuff. It was hard to tell with her baggy shirt, which was dyed into the color of the rainbows. ...That wasn't school dress code at all.

"Do you even _belong_ in this school?" he asked incredulously.

"Oh yeah..." she said. "Zein said that this is a school... Heh, are you a student here?" she grinned at him.

"Of course," Draco said, brushing down his clothes. Classes that day had been cancelled, but it was still customary for students to wear their uniform in the day time. Besides, there was to be some sort of house meeting later in the day.

"Great," she said, grabbing his hand. "Then you can help me find my friend!" She pulled him with one hand wrapped around by the wrist in a surprisingly strong grip and her other hand sliding against the wall ahead of her, as if feeling for a door or another hallway.

"Let _go_ of me," Draco said, pulling his arm away, unaccustomed to being dragged by his friends, let alone some stranger. "Now, if you want to look for someone, you have to at least tell me what he looks like," he said to her. "Describe him to me."

"Uh...he smells like coffee... he likes coffee...he ties his hair back when he's cooking like, really messily, and...he has a hat!"

He stared at her. "...Okay. How about something a bit more...different? Is he Asian like you?"

"Uh..."

"You don't know. Older than you?"

"Well, he's taller."

"Is his hair...long?"

"That I know for sure!" she said. "And yes. No. Uh... kinda."

"...The color of his clothes?"

"...I don't know."

Draco groaned. Great, at least they had it narrowed down to a possible hundred people in Hogwarts. "You don't even remember the color? Are you _stupid_?" he asked her.

"K...my friend says I'm very silly a lot," Ishidoro said. "Do you know where the kitchen is?"

"The Great Hall isn't open yet. There's no breakfast."

"No, Zein is obsessed with the kitchen!" she said. "Take me to the kitchen!"

"I know where it is, but I don't know how to get i—"

"I'll figure that out!" she said. Sighing, Draco led her to the end of the hallway. It wasn't that far when Ishidoro placed a palm on the painting.

"I thought you said it was the kitchen," she said. "This is a wall. No, wait, a really big painting. Oil? It smells funny."

"I know that this is the entrance to the kitchen," Draco said. "But no one in my house has figured out how to get past the portrait."

"Think it's a password?" the girl asked him, but she didn't wait for an answer. She traced her fingers on the surface of the portrait and tapped the pear. The pear let out a muffled sound, as if it were annoyed. She patted it again, and it continued to respond in a muffled 'voice'. Finally, Ishidoro turned to smacking the surface of the pear repeatedly until the pear, with bruised skin, opened up the portrait hole.

Immediately, Draco was greeted by the scene of a bustling, high-ceilinged room full of house elves running around mounds of glittering brass pots and pans heaping on the stone walls and a huge brick fireplace. But that was nothing in comparison to­—

"MAD!" a psycho in a fur hat shouted. "LOOK! I'M IN HEAVEN!"

The man probably would have had a crazed look in his eye, if they had been wide enough to see through. He had narrow eyes and wore a new green shade of sunglasses. His clothing, which looked as if it had recently been white, still looked ironed but were stained in several places, though whatever it was, it wasn't food. More like... some type of dust.

"Zein! You smell funny!" the girl said, launching herself at him. She would've missed entirely, but Zein just laughed and caught her by the arm. He froze, seeing Malfoy.

"_You_..." he said in a serious voice. "You...look like Lucy! Oh my god, you're like... a carbon copy of him! Like a _ninja_!" He laughed. "How weird."

"What's a ninja?"

"..." Zein didn't even say anything. This boy...he didn't even know what their own world's equivalent of a shinobi was! Of course, how could he suspect any more from the son of Lucius Malfoy. He paused, nudging Ishidoro with a 'look' in his eye.

"...Get the heck out of my kitchen," Zein said. "You're scaring my elf. Where is Dobs anyway?"

"What? This isn't _your kitchen_," Draco sneered. "School propert—"

The next thing Draco knew, he landed on his face, outside of the portrait.

---------------------------------

Naruto, Ron, Harry, and Hermione were visiting Hagrid, who had been somewhat disappointed that the classes had been cancelled that day.

"I wasn't sure whether they 'ibernate or not," Hagrid said to them. "Thought we'da jus' try an' see if they fancied a kip. I tried ter get'em in the boxes, but ah... as yeh can see, I 'ad a bitta trouble there."

There were only ten skrewts left, but they still hadn't seemed to grown out of what Naruto called "killing-each-other-like-their-lives-depended-on-it" stages. Each were enormous, six feet long with thick gray armor, powerful scuttling legs, fire-blasting ends, stings, and suckers.

Naruto paused. "I, uh, think I'll leave now," he said nervously, edging behind Hagrid's cabin.

"Why—?" Ron asked, unsure of why Naruto, whom he had re-taken another liking to for his bold behavior, was suddenly nervous. As Ron, Harry, and Hermione stepped into the cabin, they saw Rita Skeeter, wearing a thick magenta cloak with a furry purple collar and a crocodile-skin handbag over her shoulder.

Sorry, Hagrid, but it was every man for himself.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione excused themselves as well as they ran back out of the cabin.

Poor Hagrid knew nothing of what he was in for. Harry would have to ask Shino and Naruto to get whatever contact they had in the Daily Prophet to do what he or she could to stop Rita from writing whatever she was going to write about Hagrid, her unwary victim.

It was lunch already. Students had gathered in the Great Hall, drinking hot cocoa and blowing on it.

"Oh yeah," Harry said to Naruto, handing him a box. "Everything in there's been minimized, but your friend '_Tobi_' wanted to give you some winter clothes."

"Who?"

"Tobi. You know, creepy guy...named Tobi. But not really," he said, trying to be discreet.

"...Huh?"

"Tobi!"

"I don't know any Tobi."

"_The freaky bat guy_!"

"...Oooooh, you mean _Tobi_-Tobi," Naruto said, laughing. He took the box. "Thanks. Though it would've been a bit nicer to remind me that _before_ I went outside in sandals," he said, looking at his now-white feet. He was still waiting for the feeling to return.

"You could've at least worn socks," Hermione said to Naruto.

"What are socks?"

And so went their avid discussion of winter clothing. Harry spotted Cho across the table sitting at the Ravenclaw table. She looked back at him and smiled.

Harry _attempted_ to smile back but ended up spitting a bit of juice out of his mouth, much to Ino's disgust.

"A parcel for you, Mr. Weasley," a younger student said formally, handing Ron a package.

"Ah, thank you, Nigel," Ron said, looking at the package his mother had sent him. Everyone at the table caught Nigel staring creepily at Harry. Ron glared at the younger Gryffindor. "Not now, Nigel. Later. Go on."

The embarrassed student scampered off.

"So..." Kiba said to Ron, genuinely interested. "How'd you get him? No, I mean, how'd you _keep_ him? I mean, I've been looking for an indentured servant for _ages_ and not a single one..."

Ron sighed. "I told him I'd get him Harry's autograph," he admitted with a sigh. "Hm...look, Mum's sent me something..."

"What is it?" Kiba asked eagerly, smelling something strange and possibly very exciting. "Money? Food? A... a dress?"

"Bloody hell," the Weasley said. "She sent me a _dress_?"

"Well, it does match your eyes," Harry teased. "Is there a bonnet?"

"Ginny," Ron said, walking over to his sister.

"_I'm_ not wearing _that_," Ginny said, wrinkling her nose in distaste both from the fashion and the strange smell emanating from it. "It's _ghastly_."

Hermione laughed.

"What are _you_ on about?" Ron asked her.

"They're not for Ginny," she said. "They're for _you_! These are dress robes."

Everyone at the table suddenly felt an ominous sense of doom. Except for Ron, of course.

"Dress robes?" Ron said, confused. "For _what_?"

------------------------

"The Yule Ball has been a tradition of the Tri-Wizard Tournament since its inception. It will take place on December twenty-fifth from eight o'clock to midnight. It is an opportunity for us to socialize with our foreign guests. The ball is only open to fourth years and above, but you may invite a younger student if you wish. Dress robes _will_ be worn... Now is the time for all of you to brush up on your dancing skills because the Yule Ball is, in short, a dance."

_Oh...god... _

Almost immediately, boys began to groan and freak out at the thought of asking a girl out, though girls seemed much more excited. _They_ immediately gathered together, as if planning out their attacks on the so far unwary boys.

Naruto snickered. "Ooh, I can't wait to see the horde chasing after Sasuke. This is going to be _fun_. Oh, and Neji too. Wait, girls won't be flocking to him as much, he's still an emotional wreck, from what I hear. He's in denial now. Thinks he and Tenten are still together."

"So in other words, Neji lost his marbles?" Ron asked him with a funny look on his face. "I've got to admit, I never would've thought I'd see straight-laced Neji go berserk."

"Uzumaki! Weasley! And you, too, Potter!" Professor McGonagall said. "Will you pay attention?"

"I _am_ paying attention, old lady!" Naruto said. The next thing he knew, his hair was green. He glared at the Transfiguration teacher. "_Hey_!"

"I will not tolerate rudeness," she said huffily.

"You didn't say anything last time I called you old!" Naruto said.

"I was distraught," she said, sulkily changing Naruto's blond hair back to its original color.

"Don't argue with her anymore," Harry suggested.

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "Who knows? She might turn your hair into snakes next."

Naruto shuddered.

"Silence, all of you," McGonagall said sternly. "The Yule Ball is a chance for us to, ah, let loose and have fun. _However_, that does _not_ mean we will be relaxing the standards of behavior that we expect from Hogwarts students. I will be most seriously displeased if a Gryffindor student embarrasses the school in any way."

Naruto and Harry gulped, feeling her eyes rest on them. At times like these, the fame from being Champion was not worth the number of eyes following their every movement. Especially considering that one pair of the many eyes belonged to the no-nonsense McGonagall.

"I would also like to note to Misters Potter and Uzumaki that champions and their partners—"

"PARTNERS?-!" Naruto interrupted, looking panicked. "Gaah..." He fell over when Professor McGonagall waved her wand and his hair turned into a writhing mound of snakes.

"What do you mean by partners?" Harry asked, with more respect than Naruto. "I thought that the judges had decided that Naruto and I were partners in the Tournament."

"By partners, Potter, I meant _dance partners_," she said, waving her wand and returning Naruto's hair back to it's normal condition..

"…"

Hearing this, their insides seemed to curl up and shrivel.

"I don't dance," Naruto whimpered, still clutching his head. "Ya mean it's _mandatory_?"

"Yes it is," she said irritably. That's what I'm saying. It _is_ necessary for champions and their dance partners to open the ball."

"I'm not dancing," Harry said, sounding frantic. Girls and guys both began giggling at the two Gryffindor champions.

"It is traditional," she said firmly. "You are Hogwarts' champion, and you _will_ do what is expected of you as a representative of the school, so make sure you get yourself a date, boys."

"But—but I can't—" Naruto stuttered, turning red and resembling Hinata in some strange way.

Apparently, Professor McGonagall was done with this conversation, cutting them off. However, they were glad that she had switched targets to...

"Now, Mr. Weasley, if you will join me..."

She grabbed Ron and pulled him up in front of the crowd.

"Now, place your right hand on my waist."

"ON YOUR WHAT?"

------------------

Despite how badly things were starting to go in McGonagall's Gryffindor class, it certainly could have been much worse. Like in Severus's class, for example.

Sasuke's eyes widened in panic. A dance...

Oh shit.

Almost immediately, girls started watching Sasuke like cats preparing to pounce on their unwary prey. He shuddered, sorely wishing that he had worn the shirt Ino had sewn for him. Meager protection, but a bit safer nevertheless.

Sasuke backed up behind Gaara, who had borrowed Kankurou's kitty cap (much to his brother's annoyance, though he wouldn't dare ask for it back). Maybe it was so his brother's icky-ness and girl repellence might rub off on him, though it was actually Kankurou's attitude that chased girls away. Or maybe it was to hide the residue of the black eye that had healed quickly overnight but still had a few traces left.

In any case, Sasuke needed to devise a plan to escape. While Anko and Snape were arguing about how the professor was 'violating her personal space'. Sasuke crept towards the door when a sugar quill flew through the air and embedded itself in the door in front of his face.

"Back in line, Uchiha," Anko said.

"I could kill you for that, you know," Sasuke said in a playful sounding voice, though Anko heard a hint of almost a real threat in that.

"No doubt you could, with all that extra training you had," she almost purred. "Buuut, _I'm _yourteacher now! Therefore you do what I say or _die_."

"That's not how it works," he spat scathingly.

"And _I_ am the teacher," Snape said. "_You_ are the assistant."

"Yeah, Mitarashi," Sasuke said.

"That's _Assistant_ Mitarashi," the potions master said.

"Yeah. Even if I'm an assistant, I'm still higher than you!" she jeered. "Nyaaaah."

"Be silent, Mitarashi."

"_You_ be quiet, _Sevi-poo_," she shot back.

"My name is not S...Sss...sse...that," he said, unable to repeat her nickname for him. He frantically tried to think of an annoying name for her. ((urgh, brain fart)) "An...ki."

Okay, it was a weak and extremely pathetic attempt. However, she looked rather annoyed by that name. "..._What_?" she said, with a twitchy look in her eye.

Hallelujah, he found something that ticked her off!

"Anki," he said decisively.

Immediately, the offended look disappeared. "Ooh, okay," she said.

Damn.

"I thought you called me _aniki_, which means something totally weird to be calling me."

"Aniki..." Snape said.

Anko, realizing that she had just given him suitable ammo, frowned. "Oh come on, don't call me that."

"So long as you call me S...s...that, I shall call you Aniki."

"I AM NOT A _BROTHER_ LET ALONE YOURS!"

Thus, Sasuke was able to make his escape.

-----------------------------

"Neji! Come out!" Sakura said, banging on the door to the boy's common room.

"No!" was the muffled reply. "I'm confused and I'm staying inside!"

"Neeeji!" she said, hitting it harder. They were late for the House meeting! Oh hell, they might as well just not go.

"Noooo!"

Sakura twitched angrily and kept on slamming on the door until it finally broke apart. Neji stared at her.

"…"

She stared back.

"…"

"_Anyway_," Sakura said, sweeping away the pieces with her wand, "you've _got_ to come out! There's some sort of meeting."

"Why aren't you there?"

"I was trying to get you and Tenten out!" she said. "And Shikamaru! He's so lazy! Just sitting on the couch, going, 'Ooh, this is so _troublesome_! That is so _troublesome_! Everything is so _troublesome_!' Honestly, how Temari could make him actually _move_ is beyond me. Okay, not really, she's got that huge fan and whacks him around all the time but... whatever! Come out!"

"No!"

"Why not!"

"I can't go outside! Tenten and I broke up!"

"What does that have to do with anything?" she asked him.

"Nghe..." He continued to beat his head on the wall. "I don't even _remember_! Whenever we broke up, it was always on mutual consent! When we're _both _mad at each other! This isn't right! You heard. Everyone says they heard. Are you _sure_ we broke up?"

"Yes. I remember it. _Very_ clearly."

"Explain it to me again," Neji said firmly.

**Flashback**

_"You're comparing _that girl_ to _me_?" Tenten practically snarled at Neji. _

_"No!" Neji declared. I'm not! I'm just saying that you have your own special charm... and so does she!" Wrong move, Neji-kun. _

_"FLEUR DELACOUR DOES NOT HAVE ANY CHARM WHATSOEVER, WHETHER IT'S 'SPECIAL' OR NOT!" _

_"Tenten, I'm just—I'm trying—you're just...so..._difficult

_Sakura, who was sitting in the common room, was unable to help but hear the couple as they shouting so loudly that she was sure even someone outside of the Ravenclaw's secret entrance would be able to hear the argument. She shook her head. Apparently, Neji had never read Dating for Dummies, which specifically stated, "never insult a woman in the midst of an argument, for it shall extend the quarrel for at least three hours if the insult is particularly offensive." _

_Poor Neji was definitely in for it this time. _

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH**

_Sakura fell off of the cushion she was sitting on at the sound of an agonizing scream. Was there a real attacker? Or was Tenten just mauling Neji again? _

_"Tenten! You—you _stabbed_ me! With a quill! An INKED quill!" _

_Ah, so it was the latter. _

_"Yes! And you know what?" _

What?

_"I'm _not_ apologizing!" _

_Sakura heard a shocked gasp. Shikamaru, who was reading a book on A History of Ministry Law and Order, looked up lazily. _

_"What are they fighting about now...?" he asked lazily. _

_"Tenten's mad that Neji isn't doing anything about Fleur's flirting. Every move she makes, she nabs Neji with her veela-ness and he goes all googly-eyed. Tenten's annoyed about that and Neji's trying to convince Tenten not to maim Fleur." _

_"How troublesome... Temari and I never get into fights like that," he said, yawning. _

_"Well that's because Temari has you whipped," Sakura quipped. Shikamaru glared at Sakura, Shikamaru-style. Not that angrily, but more lazily than anything. Only Shikamaru could pull of a lazy glare. _

_"Why are you even _reading_ this stuff?" Sakura said, sorting through Shikamaru's stacks of books and papers. "Social Hierarchy of the Wizarding World... The Official OWLS Study Guide...? Prefects Who Gained Power... __Powers You Never Knew You Had and What To Do With Them Now You've Wised Up...Magical Hotspots in the Wizarding and Muggle World... Important Modern Magical Discoveries... Shikamaru, you __do realize that it specifically says in our contract that we're only staying here for one year?" _

_"It's just curiosity," Shikamaru said. _

_"Magick Most Evile... and How to Take over the Ministry of Magic in 90 Days?" _

_"...What the hell?" _

_"Ah, that one was Temari's personal favorite. A little joke," Shikamaru said with a sigh. "She thought it was funny to have me study this stuff. _

_"Tenten! What did I do wrong now? Tell me and I'll... J'll... do _something_ about it!" _

_Shaking her head, Sakura pressed her head against the door, listening more closely to the conversation. _

_Tenten sighed, frustrated. "Okay, Fleur likes you, right?" _

_"More like, she had an unnatural fixation with my hair." _

_Sakura could imagine Tenten looking straight into Neji's eyes. "And yes, I do know that Fleur is part veela, and that it's almost unavoidable, so tell me: you like Fleur, right?" _

_"Yes." _

_"…" _

_"No." _

_"…" _

_"Wait, what? Uh...Tenten... whatever I said, I didn't mean... Tenten, please back up a bit. Tenten... Ten-chan... What—what is that you are picking up? I... um... is that an ink bottle? Ten-chan, please...if you're going to do what I think you're going to do, well... please don't. Please back away. If you put that ink bottle down and leave it on the ground a secure fifteen feet away from me, I promise I'll be good. I'll...we'll...hold hands in public? Ten-chan, please...?" There was the sound of breaking glass and a splat. _

_"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" _

_Sakura sighed. Neji was screaming again. He wasn't going to come out of this unmarked. And what Sakura meant by unmarked, she meant "un-inked". Poor Neji. He was great when you were on a life-or-death suicide mission. He was horrible when it came to anything related to women. Including women themselves. _

_Sakura dove out of the way and back onto the couch, grabbing one of Shikamaru's books, as if nothing happened and that she hadn't been trying to listen on the whole thing. _

_Tenten stormed out of the room, stomping as she returned to the girls' fifth year dormitory. _

_"Ah, the storm has passed," Shikamaru said, almost jokingly. What the hell? "Hey medic," he said to Sakura, lifting his head up slightly to look at her. "You might want to check up on the 'undefeatable' Hyuga. You know, make sure he's alive?" _

_Sakura sighed. She doubted it was anything serious. The most that Tenten ever did was slap—oh, well today surely topped it off. Neji was sitting on the bed, doing something Sakura had never seen a Hyuga doing before. _

_"Neji, are you _crying

_Ordinarily, any proud member of the Hyuga clan would have loudly denied this but Neji, used to talking Sakura, had less of a problem. Sakura was the doctor who patients always spoke to about personal problems. In Neji's point of view, he _had_ no personal problems (being the "perfect Hyuga"), but he was used to talking to her nevertheless. _

_"…" _

_Well, if by talking, one meant staring at his feet as the listener would wait for a response. _

_"Did Tenten break up with you?" _

_"...Yes?" _

_"Ah, I had my money on six months before you went through the whole fiasco again. You don't suppose you could give me a hint as to when you guys plan to get back together, could you? I could use a bit of money right now." _

_Neji frowned. "I have no idea whether we are getting back together..." _

_"WHAT?" Sakura yelped. Ah, there goes her main income. Considering she couldn't take on another mission _during_ a mission, she turned to Kiba and his wagering contests among the shinobi for a small income. After all, there was no point in going to Hogsmeade if she didn't have any money. On the other hand Gaara never seemed too angry to lend her money. _

_Naruto was right, he was a nice guy. _

_But that's not the point because Tenten and Neji may have finally broken up for good, and that was _not_ good for Sakura. _

_"Is that why you're upset?" she said, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice. "Because she broke up with you? Because if you feel bad about that, then that means you still like her and still belong with—" _

_"No!" Neji said hastily. "_That's_ not why I'm upset! And I'm not upset! I'm just emotionally distraught—" _

_In other words: UPSET! _

_"—and the only reason I am so is because that witch stabbed me in a leg with a quill! An _INKED_ quill!" _

_"Uh, now Neji..." _

_"She's psychotic. And she's got no sexual appeal at all!" _

_"Neji, you shouldn't say things like this so lou—" _

_"I mean seriously, that Hermione Granger's got the bushy hair, but tie it up and she can be cuter! Like a... like a dog or something. She could even have a bookish look! Ino's got that graceful thing. That weird...you know... I remember she tried this weird hair thing when we were little. Didn't go so well for her, but I bet any other guy would have been knocked over by it." _

_"Neji...!" Sakura said desperately. The idiot Hyuga was shouting much too loudly. Knowing his luck, Tenten would come in any minute now. _

_"All of you have something, but Tenten has absolutely _nothing_ worth looking aAAAAAAT!" An irate ex-girlfriend pounced at him like a cat and tore at him. Sakura, wide-eyed, walked backwards out of the room and shut the door. _

_She'll just come back later_.

"And that's all I saw," Sakura said to Neji.

"..._That's_ _all_?" Neji said. "How do you know she broke up with me?"

"Because you said."

"You said that I said it like a question," Neji said. "_That_ means we might not have broken up like you said we did."

"Unlikely. She beat the crap out of you just now for trying to kiss her, didn't she? Or did the slap scramble your brains?"

"It didn't scramble my brain!" Neji said. "I was just...urgh, I'm confused..."

"Okay," Sakura said, pulling out a quill and a pen. "Tell me what exactly you don't remember," she said firmly.

"...How am I supposed to do that?"

She frowned. Good point. "Okay, yeah, I forgot... Can't remember. Hm...Okay, so during the first task, you don't remember falling, right?"

"Right."

"And you don't remember breaking up with Tenten."

"Right."

"Okay, do you remember what happened when Naruto cut your hair?"

"He WHAT?"

Sakura played the 'do you remember' game for a while, making not of all the things he did and didn't remember.

"Do you remember your first Defense Against Dark Arts Lesson with Professor Moody?"

"With Professor _what?_"

Sakura paused. "Alastor Moody? 'Constant vigilance!' Grizzled dark gray hair, a freaky eye? Ibiki look alike?"

"There's a guy out there who looks like _Ibiki_?" Neji said in horror. "Good god!"

"How can you forget a face like this?" Sakura said, scribbling a face onto the sheet of paper.

A happy face with lines scribbled all over it and one huge eye.

"...How could I?" Neji said, looking down at it.

Sakura sighed, taking a notebook out of her bag, opening it and turning to page M. "'Moody Alastor. One of the best Aurors the Ministry ever had. Friend of Dumbledore and the Weasleys. A bit paranoid these days. Has suspicions of everyone. Possibly us.' And here's Ino's input...

'His face looks like it was carved out of wood by a blind idiot with a butter knife who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like and _no idea_ how to even use a knife. Said person is none too skilled with a chisel. Every inch of skin seems to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing. Like someone bit it. Ew... One of his eyes is small, dark, and beady. The other is HUGE, and round like a coin, and a blue like a... like something blue. vivid, electric blue. The blue eye is always moving, doesn't blink, and rolls in any direction, independent from the normal eye. Like a willingly cross-eyed guy. It could also go to the back of his head. Freaky...'

"And that's what she wrote," Sakura said decisively snapping the journal shut. She pulled out a picture of Moody, who glared up at them with his rolling eye. "Honestly, Ino's good with her description, but we didn't need to know _that_ much..."

"I don't remember him," Neji said, looking at the photo Sakura had handed him. "How can I forget a guy who sounds _that grotesque_? It's insane!"

"So," Sakura said. "You really don't remember..."

"I said that!"

"Shut up, I'm trying to think," Sakura said. They sat there for ten minutes until students began to return from the House meeting.

"You know, I bet if we dragged Shikamaru in here and forced him to talk, we could have figured this out five minutes ago—" Neji found himself hitting the wall, thrown half-way across the room.

"I've got it!" Sakura said, sitting up.

"That's great," Neji muttered, peeling himself off the wall and rubbing his bruised head painfully.

"You've got a memory charm!" Sakura said. "Someone cast a memory charm on you during the first task, and now you can't remember anything you deem significant!"

"Why would I consider anyone with a face like Ibiki's significant?"

"Well, he _was_ the most powerful Auror in the Ministry of Magic during his time," Sakura said. "It makes sense that you would take notice of powerful people."

"What about us? I still remember everyone else."

"You've known us all for a long time. The memory charm only corrupted your more recent memories. It's a good thing you reported all important memories to us, right?" Sakura said laughing.

"..." Neji closed his eyes, frowning.

"..._Right_?" she repeated through clenched teeth.

He glared at her irritably. "How am I supposed to know?" he said. "If I knew something important that you guys don't know, I won't remember it!"

Sakura sighed.

----------------------------------

"What the heck is Yule?" Sakura said. "A whole bunch of guys have been asking me about it all day, and I have no idea what they're talking about!"

It now seemed to be a habit for students in general to spend their breakfast and lunch outside. Originally, it had only been the Japanese students who had eaten outside, and Harry had joined him after Ron's falling out.

However, now that Ron and Harry were the best of friends once again, it seemed only logical that the Golden Trio would eat together once again, right? Well, Harry tried to sit inside with the others, but without Naruto's chaos, their meals seemed to be lacking in... noise. And After all, what was lunch without chaos to spread?

Therefore, Ron, Hermione, and Harry spent their times eating outside with the shinobi and, oddly enough, their champion counterparts. They weren't alone in this, as most popular students from each school joined the lunch circle, it was only logical that the fangirls would follow after (much to everyone's chagrin).

So, in the end, with the main Lunch Circle sitting outside, other smaller groups formed around them—oddly enough, there were even a large number of Slytherins enjoying the afternoon air.

Hearing about Sakura's horde of guys, Gaara coughed, breathing in his drink. Could a liter of water on one's lung kill a person? Perhaps, but not Gaara. Because he's Gaara.

"Who asked you about it?" he asked her.

"Wouldn't _you_ like to know," Sasuke said, smirking into his drink.

"What's that supposed to mean, Uchiha?" he demanded.

"_Nothing_..." Sasuke and Ino traded glances and started laughing to themselves, much to everyone else's confusion. "But don't worry, Sakura," he said to her. "I'll beat the guys off with a stick if they even look at you in a wrong way. Once you're done with them, of course."

"You had _better not_ be flirting with my best friend!" Ino said, an evil aura glowing in her eyes.

"'Course not," Sasuke said. "Just looking out for your very hot friend. Best friend, I meant. Oops."

Ino rolled her eyes, yanking on his bangs. "You had better learn to dance correctly. You've got a month to learn."

"Is _anyone_ going to tell me what Yule is?" Sakura repeated.

"Yool ees basically just anuzzer werd for Christmas," Fleur said. Tenten glared at the French girl threateningly. Kiba smirked.

"What's Christmas?"

"How can you not know what Christmas is?" Ron said, once he was done ogling at Fleur as she had spoken. "It's _Christmas_! Presents all around!"

"They don't celebrate Christmas in Japan?"

All the Japanese students stared at Hermione when she asked her question. _Did_ Japanese people celebrate Christmas? They didn't know what to say. If they said no, and Japanese people _did_ celebrate it, if Hermione found out later (being a painfully perceptive witch) things could get very complicated. But if they said yes, then Sakura's previous question would be extremely suspicious as well. And, of course, if they did say yes and the real Japanese society did not, well...

"Uh..." Naruto tapped his headband. "Christmas isn't translated. We still don't know what it is."

"Oh!" Hermione said, as if everything was suddenly explained. "Christmas is a holiday held on December 25, which celebrates the birth of the Christian baby, Jesus Christ. The date is just traditional and isn't considered the actual birth-date of Jesus. Wizards aren't completely huge believers in Christian faith, but it's the most economically significant holiday of the year. The popularity of Christmas can be traced in part to its status as a winter festival. The holiday is characterized by the exchange of gifts among friends and family members, some of the gifts being attributed to Santa Clause, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, and Father Frost. "

Viktor Krum, who was sitting next to Hermione, stared at his lunch. Too many big words... He knew what Christmas was but... What a huge definition for a simple celebration...

"Who's Santa?" Naruto asked.

"Hoo boy, another question," Ron muttered to Harry.

"A long time ago, there was a bishop who came to be known as Santa Claus," Hermione said. "People today portray him as a kindly, round-bellied, merry, bespectacled man in a red coat trimmed with white fur with a white beard. On Christmas Eve, on December 24, the day before Christmas, he rides in his sleigh pulled by flying reindeer from house to house to give presents—"

"Presents?" Naruto repeated. "I _love_ presents!"

Hermione glared at Naruto for interrupting her speech and continued as if she hadn't heard him. "—To give presents to children. To enter the house, Santa Claus comes down the chimney and exits through the fireplace. During the rest of the year, he lives together with his wife Mrs. Claus and his elves manufacturing toys. He lives in the North Pole."

"...Wow," Naruto said. "Santa's a _ninja_!"

Everyone laughed, though for different reasons.

"So, I'm guessing you guys don't celebrate Christmas?" Hermione asked them.

"Oh, we call Sanda _Sandaime_," the blond said with a smile. The group got quiet, just thinking.

Suddenly, Ino leaned forward to Viktor Krum (who instinctively leaned back, wary of this girl who suspiciously resembled a fangirl. She whispered something in his ear and handed him a card.

"Just in case you want any help," she said to him with a grin.

The others looked at Ino suspiciously as she passed one to Fleur as well.

Sakura opened her mouth, but she decided that she didn't want to know. Gaara tried to look at what was written on the slip of paper, but Viktor hid it, scowling. Gaara scowled too. It was almost odd to see how they looked so much alike.

"You know what sucks?" Kankurou said, leaning back.

"What?"

"I broke up with Sarea," he said.

"So?" Ino said. "You've been trying to break up with her for over a month now. Congratulations, what's the problem?"

"Now I gotta get a date."

"_Oh_," Ino said. "...That _is_ a problem."

"Not much of one," Naruto said. "We've all got fangirls. We just need to pick out a non-ugly one."

"You're _right_," Kankurou said, sitting up. "And I know who is _never_ going to get asked, so if I ask her, she can't say 'no' because I'm a champion and the only chance she's got at a date!"

"...She must be some desperate girl," Naruto said, puzzled.

"Not desperate, just loopy," he said smugly. He's got a daaate! Yay for Kankurou!

"Now," Kiba said, standing up at the bell rang for students to return to their Houses. Fleur looked rather disappointed when Akamaru got up from her lap with his owner (and by that, I mean Kiba got up and Akamaru got up! Kiba was NOT sitting on Fleur's lap!) Akamaru lapped up the rest of Fleur's uneaten sandwhich and licked her face. "Aw, Akamaru!" Kiba said. "Getoffa her...! Anyway, I'd just like everyone to know, Akamaru likes chew toys and I'm rather fond of Zonko's products."

He got up and left. Suddenly, it dawned on all of the Japanese students. Christmas was a time of giving and sharing and giving some more. Which meant their pockets would be empty for a while. And that meant...

...They had better start saving up their Knuts.

"I think I hate Christmas," Naruto said, almost in tears just _thinking _of the money he'd be spending on everyone else.

-------------------------------------------------

((This chapter seems a bit shorter than usual, so I'm adding a small sidestory of what happened during dinner.))

"I'm not going outside, I'm not going!" Sasuke shouted as Sakura and Ino dragged him outside, carrying him between them by the elbows. I _despise_ the cold! It's cold, it's dark, and I'm hungry!"

"We've got food here, and it's perfectly fine outside!" Sakura said.

"How'd we get all of this?" Sasuke said as the girls forced him into the Dinner Circle with everyone sitting around them again. Dammit, there was no escape, was there? Neji and Fleur weren't present. They had probably been able to escape eating outside. Or maybe the two were just avoiding Tenten.

Either way, on the other side of the circle, Kiba, Ron, Harry and a few of the other Japanese students were taking bets as to when/whether Neji and Fleur or Neji and Tenten were going to get together.

"Gaara and I have friends in low places," Naruto said, breathing in his ramen. "Really low, in fact. Say, Gaara, the kitchens are on the bottom floor, right?"

"Not the bottom," Gaara muttered, looking preoccupied. "The ceiling is just extra-low."

"I hate you both," Sasuke growled.

"What, it's a good meal!" the blond said, looking offended.

"Why do we have to eat _outside_? It's freezing!"

"Look! Snow!" Naruto said, pointing everywhere as if it weren't obvious that the whole area was covered in white frosting.

"Feel! Cold!" the Uchiha said.

"Pansy!"

"Idiot!"

"What does being an idiot have to do with snow?"

"You're probably too _stupid_ to notice that you can no longer feel your legs!"

"Am not! I _did_ notice that I can't feel my... OH MY GOD I CAN'T FEEL MY LEGS!" Naruto ran around wildly, shouting to everyone, "I can't feel my legs, I can't feel my legs!"

"He's kidding, right?" Kiba said, watching Naruto run to Hinata and grab at her feet. "I mean, he's _running._ I can't even tell whether he's joking or not..."

"Viktor!" Ino said, walking over to him. "Did you decide yet? Yes? No? Maybe?"

Viktor muttered something under his breath, which no one really understood except for Ino, who nodded affirmatively. "Good, the meeting starts after dinner tomorrow," she said. "Feel free to invite friends, but I refuse to serve refreshments."

"Shikamaru, why are you studying during our break?" Temari complained, snatching a book away out of his hands. "Eat now or die!"

"No."

Temari pulled on Shikamaru's arm, who grabbed Sasuke, who took hold of Kankurou who tried to anchor them all on Tenten when he froze, suddenly realizing how fatal that could be.

...Because at that moment, Neji and Fleur decided to make their appearance, looking oddly cheerful as they together.

"T—" Neji said, but he was unable to finish his sentence when dozens of snowballs flew in the air and struck him.

Oh. No. She did _not_ just throw that at him!

"Neji, you shouldn't—" Fleur said as Neji bent down to scoop up his own snowball so he could throw it back at his ex. "Oh!" Something cold and icy hit her full in the face. "That is it, leetle geerl! It is _war_!"

Two snowballs were intercepted in midair as Tenten used Shino the Human Shield to block their attack.

"...!" (Damn you all...!)

Everyone was silent to see how the Aburame would react to being unwillingly used as a human shield the next time. Shino walked over to Neji and Fleur and, feinting an attack on Fleur, he ended up forcing Neji face first into the snow.

"Ah, you bastard!" Neji pushed himself up from the arm and fluidly used his chakra to spin, shooting out wet snow in every which direction.

"Ah!" Naruto said. "You got us all, you bastard!" He used what was left of his ramen bowl to scoop up snow and dunk it on Sasuke's head.

"I didn't do _anything_!" Sasuke said angrily. All of a sudden, he felt something warm on his head. "NARUTO! YOU DIDN'T FINISH YOUR RAMEN, YOU IDIOT!"

"...OH GOD, I WASTED MY RAMEN ON YOUR HEAD!"

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE!"

Ino laughed, grabbed a handful of the powdery white dust, and shoved it down the back of Sasuke's collar. "Ino!"

She laughed. "The expression on your face is just priceless!" Ino paused, waved, and stepped back. Sasuke felt a sense of impending doom. He turned around and nearly screamed at the size of a huge monstrous snowball hurled his way.

Gaara covered his eyes, not sure how to react as Naruto shouted his approval of Sakura's throwing arm.

"Whoo!" Naruto cheered. "You go, girl!"

"Congratulations," Gaara managed to say, "you actually managed to KO the Uchiha."

"It should be a game," Kankurou said thoughtfully. "Whoever knocks him out cold the longest wins?"

"Sakura's doused him in ice. I think she takes the prize," Naruto said sulkily.

"You guys suck!" Sasuke shouted, shaking the snow out of his shirt. "I hate snow! Aw, shut up, Diggory!"

"Aaah!"

Soon, the air was thick with snow missiles and flying lumps. With the snow falling, and more snow flying, it was starting to get difficult to see.

"Don't worry, Hinata, I'll protect you!"

(start stutter) "Naruto... that's not m—" (end stutter)

"Naruto, get out of my way!" Kiba growled.

"How trouble—"

"Ngehehehehe!" Temari cackled wildly, swinging her fan with a gleam in her eye. And the next thing they knew, it was nearly impossible to see.

"Shikamaru, something has _possessed_ your girlfriend...!" Ron shouted, twitching as Temari laughed evilly.

"I swear, it's not me!" Ino declared.

"…!"

"Sasuke, Shino says to put that dow—!" Kiba began, but Sasuke hurled his snowball towards Naruto. The rock sailed through the air, breaking the glass of the Great Hall.

Everyone stopped.

"Sasuke! Were you trying to _kill_ me?" Naruto yelped as others freaked out.

"...Oops." Sasuke shrugged as if he didn't really care. And he probably didn't.

"RUN AWAY!"

All of the kids scattered as a teacher looked through the broken window.

_Inside the Great Hall... _

"...And so the crazy girl leads me all around school, I help her find her idiot of a friend, and _they have the nerve to kick me out of the kitchen!_" Draco complained for the thousandth time that day. "Honestly, it's completely unjust! And undignified! And _rude_! You would think a girl like her would have some knowledge of proper manners...! I have half a mind to go back to the kitchens and _demand_ a formal apology from th—"

CLONK.

A rock covered in snow crashed through the windows, flew through the air, and knocked Draco out. His head his the table with a loud 'thunk'.

"Praise the lord!" Theodore Nott exclaimed, throwing his arms up in the air. "The gods have shut him up!"

----------------------------------

**My Thinking Corner **

"I hate Christmas!" That was my first reaction when I turned ten years old and had my first Christmas. At first, I was like, "Yaaay, it's Christmas again! Presents for me!" And then my siblings are like, "Nuh-uh, now that you're in the two digits, you are officially an adult, which means _you have to buy things for us too! Muahahahahahaha!_" Lightning struck, things got dark, and it was very scary.

Anyway, in cases similar to the snowfight scene, I find myself in the same situation as before, when there were too many people in one place, which makes it difficult to get a scene for them all... Anyway, I can imagine the whole group, (like, nineteen people?-!) scattering like when baseball playing kids break a window. Yeah...

Anyway, I'm a bit more eager about the next chapter, when everyone scrambles for dates. Especially since Neji, Sakura, and Shikamaru (who missed the House meeting) don't even understand what's going on). Anyway, I was looking for good fics when I see an INSANELY HUGE NAME called, like... afallenangelcaughtinthepastofdarkmemorys. Wtf? It's 40 letters, mispelled, and a mix of a goth-wannabeish Sue and something stupider! EH? It's huuuuuge. I hate that. Seriously.

By the way, does ANYBODY remember what the previous summary for this fiction was before I changed it?

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**DarkAliceChibi**: THANK YOU. Nobody told me what Shannaro means, so I'm like, finally, someone tells me, dangit! Thanks!  
**Lainana**: (sob) I'm not a guy-girl...   
**aznelemants**: Piiie! I don't care if it's ugly or not. It could look like ROCK LEE for all I care and I'll still eat it! Okay, actually, I probably wouldn't... I'd probably freak out, with his eyebrows staring up at me. And yes, when Gaara was brushing off sand, he was recondensing it. That's a good way of putting it. ...Does that grammatically make sense? As for bringing in Sai... the only small problem is that his first appearance (if I follow my rough drafts) would be in year 5. However, I _could_ make a small scene involving him learning in Konoha what they are learning at Hogwarts. And how magic wouldn't work for him. But yeah, I like Sai, hehehe...  
**darkflame**: (gasp) How did my lovely wikipedia screw up? And yeah, I was like, helloooo! Screw the broom and summon the darn egg! And as for the lightning element, well... if that is in reference to the scar on his forehead, I would say... I have no idea. I was thinking of a magic element, but that might be too...weird. What do you think?  
**DangerousAndDemonicDevil**: No problem. I hope any of your problems are solved by now... Hyuuga and Hyuga are almost the same anyway. The double vowels are more like a stress mark. SuperFangirl is Temari.  
**Anonymous**: In the last chapter, when Harry and Naruto were practicing summoning charms, Harry asked about Naruto's family/parents. It's not too big of a touchy issue, considering the fact that he's not the only one without parents, but Naruto doesn't want to talk about it too much in case people start to think he's moping around. So Naruto told Harry to summon a rock and it ended up hitting him in the head. Voila, no more awkward questions. Problem solved, right? And yes, I love Kankurou's. He could have finished it in less than a second if he hadn't spent so much time stalling. What is TW? I'm not sure if I'm having Naruto bet, but if he did, he probably bet on himself. And yes, the "asshole" part was just for a bit of irony. He doesn't really need to say it, but he probably just wants to be able to shout profanities without getting in trouble, so he says he needs to do it to "cast his spell". I'm a real NejiTenten fan. LeeTenten is fine, but Neji is the awesomest!  
**Too lazy to get an account…**: I usually try to update on weekends anyway, since it's easier for me. Yeah, Neji's personality is actually a bit hard for me to do. I think I may just keep him drunk so it's easier on me. Just kidding. Or am I... (pauses to think about it) Anyway, Sasuke's outfit is "Sound style" ((upload (.) wikimedia (.) org/wikipedia/en/3/3b/Uchiha (underscore) Sasuke (underscore) 4 (.) jpg )). As for Rita... I made notes from throughout the Goblet of Fire book and here's what I came up with:  
Status: Reporter for the _Daily Prophet_ (quit in June 1994), unregistered beetle Animagus  
Weapon of choice: Uses a Quick Quotes Quill.  
Sidekick: Bozo (photographer).  
-Early 1980s: present at the trial of Ludo Bagman  
-Summer of 1994: wrote an article about the International Confederation of Wizards in which she called Dumbledore an obsolete dingbat.  
-Fall 1994: covered the beginning of the Triwizard Tournament, focusing on Harry, stirring up trouble, until Dumbledore told her she couldn't come onto school grounds anymore. She resorted to her beetle disguise to do so anyway.  
-June 1995, caught by Hr, who blackmailed her to quit writing for a year  
Hair: blonde, set in elaborate and curiously rigid curls  
Face: heavy-jawed, heavily penciled eyebrows, jeweled spectacles (false jewels)  
Age: 43  
Other: large mannish hands, crocodile-skin handbag holding parchment and a Quick Quotes Quill  
---------------Altogether, with fat hands and a big lower jaw, I'd say she's a bit manly.  
**Shinigami**: I'm glad people are still laughing about that. I can't stop smiling when I remember writing it... As for the pictures...you won't be the only one getting it.  
Sharingan: Thanks to you, I have broken my oath not to read other NaHP crossovers AGAIN (that's TWO TIMES NOW!) and I am pleased to say that I really liked the first one. Kakashi's awesome! I don't like Itachi too much though...  
**anonymous** (to the review in chapter 7): I've got three of them in mind, and yes, poor Neji...  
**Shadow-Sess-Marlfox**: Mikoto has red hair and Mariku has blond, though I'm not going to get into them... That was the introduction of a character request. I tried to draw him, mixing Kyakuya and Ichimaru from Bleach and ended up getting Ling from FMA, a guy who doesn't really open his eyes... the mix was rather odd. And I'll read Loophole and The Desert Rose (ironically, I hated fanfiction with a passion until I read a similar story called Desert Lily which features GaaHina... after that, I couldn't stop reading them!) And no, I don't really mind ItaSaku, so long as it's a good story.

And ah... for the sake of barely reaching thirty pages again, I'll just add a bit of a...hint? Thing? I'll let you all come to your own conclusions about this and then I'll fill in the details in the next chapter.

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_"Mm, well I think that Gaara may be the most difficult of us all..." _

_"What about Naruto?" the second person asked, rubbing the marks under his eyes. _

_"He's a fool." _

_"Exactly. Fools never let things go according to plan. He'll be tricky to maneuver." _

_"You're right," the first person sighed, brushing away blond hair. "We will have to be extra careful when handling him." _

_"And Neji?" _

_"He and Tenten will not be difficult to deal with," the blond said with a smile. _

_"Is that everyone?" _

_"What about Shino?" the blond said. _

_"Shino isn't a problem," the one with the eye marks said. _

_"Really? What did you do?" _

_"Nothing. He's done it all by himself." _

_"Ah, well, that's good. Less work for us. Now that we have identified our main targets, it's time to take action and move onto phase two. You deal with us, and I'll deal with the champions. Get it? Got it? Good." _


	29. Chapter 29

Several readers noted how I can't get Neji's personality right. In other words, he's OOC. Yes, I realized that. So I went to "study" his characteristics, going to several sites and fanfictions (some of which put him waaaay to _into_ character... how they can manage that, I don't know) and I found this at the bottom of wiki:  
_Neji's personality has changed a great deal after the timeskip (mostly due to Naruto's influence). Neji is still a very serious person, but he seems to be somewhat more cheerful. He no longer has a pessimistic attitude that his fate can not be changed, and he seems encourage his teammate to a certain extent. Neji seems to care more about his teammates than he did before, and he seems to have developed a stronger bond with them. Neji also seems to be more willing to use teamwork in battle, rather than always fight alone._  
Well...what the hell. (falls over) My conclusion? I have finally come to the fact that I am allergic to serious people. Making serious people look uber cool makes me break out in hives (I'm not serious by the way, so please don't be repulsed by me.) I like putting serious people into uncomfortable situations. Hm... this should probably go into the thinking corner. Eh, note to self when finish chapter: stick this in the thinking corner.  
Anyway, sorry about all of their OCness. I have noticed myself that all of the characters that I write are really OOC sometimes... Okay, stop laughing. Fine, a lot of times. I can't really help thinking "serious people are not funny!", but if it really bothers you, then it's fine to tell me.

Chapter 29: Ino's Dating Service

"Mm, well I think that Gaara may be the most difficult of us all..." Ino said, scratching her head as she remembered how awkward Gaara was always acting around Sakura.

"What about Naruto?" Kiba asked, rubbing the marks under his eyes. Hinata, who would have been his biggest fangirl if she were bolder, adored the idiot. Naruto, however, was completely oblivious to her feelings. There was no doubt that, once Naruto got his head on straight, he and Hinata would make a perfect couple.

"He's a fool," Ino said, as if there was nothing more obvious.

"_Exactly_," he said. "Fools _never_ let things go according to plan. He'll be tricky to maneuver." He shuddered, remembering the first time he had underestimated Naruto's ability to make all plans go awry. Just thinking about his flatulence made him shudder. Pure agony.

"You're right," Ino sighed, brushing away her blond hair. "We will have to be extra careful when handling him."

They continued down the list of couples and exes.

"And Neji?" Kiba said, looking almost worried.

"He and Tenten will not be difficult to deal with," the blond said with a smile. They were the couple made in hell. They were so perfect for each other, except for Neji's aversion to public displays of affection and Tenten's love of being cuddled. They wouldn't have to do a thing. They _always_ got back together, even though their relationship at the moment made things seem bleak.

"Is that everyone?" the Inuzuka asked, scanning the list.

"What about Shino?" Ino said. She couldn't imagine him finding a date for himself.

"Shino isn't a problem," Kiba snorted.

"Really? What did you do?"

"Nothing. He's done it all by himself."

He laughed, thinking about Shino's Secret Girlfriend. He had met her. They were... Well, personality (as welll as everything else) shunted aside, they were technically perfect for each other. Considering their hobbies, anyway.

"Ah, well, that's good," Ino said, though she still looked rather curious. However, Kiba had an 'I-know-something-you-don't-know' look on his face, which meant he wasn't telling. And considering the fact that Shino didn't talk, she doubted she'd be able to find out who the mystery date would be. "Less work for us. Now that we have identified our main targets, it's time to take action and move onto phase two. You deal with us, and I'll deal with the champions. Get it? Got it? Good."

Kiba rolled his eyes. She was definitely overestimating the importance of her self-appointed missions. Nevertheless, he had a job to do. It was time to see what he could do about Tenten.

--------------------------------------

"Why is it," Harry said to Ron in a low voice, "that they always have to travel in packs?-! How are you supposed to get one alone to ask them...?"

It was at breakfast and Ron and Harry were mulling over their possibilities of getting over this situation with their ego in one piece without bruises. Their chances? Dismal.

"Blimey, Harry," Ron said. "You've slain dragons. If you can't get a date, who can?"

Harry sighed. "I think I would rather take on the dragon right now, rather than face these people."

Groups of girls passed by and gave them icy looks before turning their backs on them.

"Hey..." Ron said, thoughtfully in a low voice. "You know how you said the Japanese were a bit different from anyone you've ever met before?"

"Er, yeah," Harry said. "What about that?"

"Well, while you and I were, ah, angry, Hermione and I were looking up things on Japanese magic. We've finally found something in the library on them."

"_Really_?" Harry said.

"It explains _everything_," Ron said excitedly. Unlike Hermione, books did not tend to get him as excited as she did, but this was almost entirely different. "Their magic is completely...different! Hermione has the book. It's called '_Eastern Clans and the Theory of Clan Magic_'."

Harry knew a conspiracy when he saw it. Heck, he was the one always starting it! "Ron, this maybe this isn't such a good idea..."

"What isn't?" Ron asked.

"Looking up the Japanese students," he said in a low voice, not wanting the others to hear what he was saying. "They aren't the bad guys, so it doesn't mat—"

"But that's the thing!" Ron said. "They might be! This is the biggest thing to happen since you destroyed the Philosopher's Stone! Someone's entered you in the tournament to try and kill you. Everyone's saying it's nearly _impossible_ to cast a spell on the Goblet of Fire. Even adult wizards would have some difficulty with it. But these guys have got weird magic that can do things that we'd only dream of doing!"

This was starting to sound a lot like Cedric, Viktor, and Fleur's 'Japanese wizard bad!' scheme.

"If they were trying to kill me, then why haven't they already?" Harry asked.

"Because it's all the part of some huge plan!"

"A plan that _they_ are trying to solve on their own," he said. Before Ron could say anything, Harry cut them off. "I know for sure... well, almost for sure, that they are _not_ trying to kill me. Anyway, they're _our_ age. How many people are bloodthirsty killers at fifteen?"

"A lot, apparently!" Ron said. "In fact, according to The Book, kids used to be used for assassinations!"

"_Assassinations_?" another person asked, overhearing this. Harry and Ron jumped when Ino approached them. She had a sly grin on her face and stood poised with a hand on her hip and a gleam in her eye. "What an _interesting conversation topic_! And very coincidental as well! You wouldn't happen to be talking about that dress your mother sent you, would you, Ron dear? Because yes, that thing _could_ kill someone's reputation. Namely yours."

"Wha...?"

Ino grinned at the confused redhead. "I'm a bit busy, but your dress robes are of _extreme _importance on my list," she said, expertly caressing every syllable. This girl must have had experience in the marketing industry.

"Your _list_?" Ron repeated.

"Yes. My list. I keep a very detailed list of things bound to humiliate others and I have found that you are in _dire _need of a new wardrobe. Now, I am _not_ wasting money on buying you new clothes. However," she added in a voice that sounded peculiarly similar to a saleswoman's, "for only the price of five galleons, I am willing to rescue from your dismal fate!"

"Five galleons! Harry, let me borrow them!" Ron said, practically jumping on his friend.

------------------------------------------

In an empty class room, the first of Ino's lessons was about to begin.

"Alright, people," Ino called to them. "One galleon per lesson! Today will be... speaking English-English and identifying your targets!"

Viktor, as well as many of the present students, shuddered at the gleam in Ino's eye.

Someone knocked on the door. "Ino," the person entering said. "Whatever you're doing in here, I have no plan to go through with—"

Sasuke stopped in midsentence and looked in the classroom full of students. "What the hell?"

"Hi, Sasuke-kun!" Ino greeted, latching herself onto his shoulder. "We're going to be teachers tonight!"

"…"

"Isn't that great?"

"...What?"

"I _said_," she said slowly, as he was struck dumb by her quick speaking rather than his assignment, "_we_ are going to teach _them_ about..._women_!"

"Good god..." Sasuke muttered under his breath, putting a hand over his eyes and forehead for a moment. He leaned on the wall, feeling suddenly drained of all energy.

"I know!" Ino said cheerfully. "Isn't it _great_?" She turned to the 'class'. "Alright, I have here a copy of a list of all the girls in all three schools! Their name, how to pronounce it, a picture taken from a fifty foot distance, a brief personality box, and 'miscellaneous'. Sasuke, pass it out. Thanks."

"Hey," one boy said. "This isn't all the girls. Hyuuga Hinata isn't on this list."

Ino smiled sweetly. "Correction: a list of all _available_ girls."

"She _is_ available. I watched. No one's asked her out."

"..." Ino stared at him. "Alright people," she said with a definitely faked cheerful voice. "Quills and pens out. If you don't have parchment, write on the back of the list. After 'Step 1: Pick a girl', make a note with a huge star under it: _Do NOT stalk the girl_! Thank you."

"Now, the real reason I invited so many of you is because, in short, you are all pathetic with women. I'm going to fix that."

Half the crowd sweatdropped.

"Alright, so the main obstacle is the fact that you don't even talk to girls! Some of you can't even pronounce their names. What we will work on today is your introductions. I want each of you to sit down and think of what you're going to say."

And so, they all started thinking, saying what they were planning to say out loud so Ino and Sasuke could fix whatever they could.

"No, no, no," Ino said patiently. "It's not Ermine, Hermy-own, or Her-minny. Her-_my_-oh-nee."

"Hermononiny."

"...Er, that's close..._er_. Yeah. It's a bit clos_er_. But, um...let's try this once again. Repeat after me: _Her_, as in 'her brain is bigger than everyone else's brain..."

"Her..."

"_My_, as in 'my brain isn't as big as that'..."

"My..."

"_Oh_, as in 'oh, for a brain that size...'"

"Oh..."

"And _knee_, as in 'I've bruised my knee."

"Knee..."

"Great! Now, string it all together and say Hermione!"

"Hairomomiminee."

Ino gave the Bulgarian seeker a strained smile that was still sweet nevertheless and an encouraging pat on the back. "Good luck, Viktor."

She turned around to see what progress Sasuke was making with his half of the room and was slightly enlightened by the fact that she was making _much_ more progress in comparison to his. Well, not progress, but she didn't break her 'students' down to tears.

"No, stupid. For ORDINARY dates, you can ask to join a girl to lunch, but if you're going to ask a girl to the _dance_, then for god's sake, ask her to go to the _dance_! Not _lunch_, not _coffee_, maybe dinner... and _NOT FOR A FREAKING MUFFIN_!"

"Well if _you're_ so great, then why don't you show us what _you_ would do?" one boy asked sarcastically.

"Gladly," Sasuke said. "...But not with you guys. I don't swing that way, sorry." A few people snickered at that. He walked over to Ino and smiled at her.

"_Hey, Ino_," he said in a low voice, smiling as he lean his face in close to hers. "_I was just wondering if you'd go to the Yule Ball with me._" A little bit of Sharingan-hypnosis would have helped, but he felt confident enough to go without. After all, they were already going out.

Ino stared at him with her light blue eyes wide and surprised. She didn't say anything for a moment, just staring at him.

"Of...of course!" she said, laughing. She hugged him feeling weak in the knees. His eyes were very pretty and scary when they were intense like that... After a while, she let go of him and hobbled away, giggling giddily.

"And _that_ is how you do it," Sasuke said, feeling smug and almost like giggling himself. But he wouldn't do that. Because he's Sasuke Uchiha and he doesn't have any facial expression except for 'smug', 'smugger', and the occasional 'mildly disturbed' when Orochimaru was hitting on him.

"But of course, you have to keep your distance because girls don't like you as much as they like me..." he continued with a hint of pride.

--------------------------------------------

"Alright!" Kiba said to the others. "Here's what we're going to do about our Christmas issues. I have here a list of general gifts available at Hogsmeade—"

"Kiba, for goodness sake, we don't care what you want for Christmas!" Naruto said, half-joking.

"I know, I know—wait, you don't? ...Whatever. The point is that I averaged the cost out to be ten galleons per gift. Now, cutting out the ridiculously expensive gifts, the average price of a gift has gone down to three galleons a gift."

"Okay..." Sakura said suspiciously. Was this about the money she owed him? Because she paid him off just before this ridiculous conversation!

"What's the point of this?" Tenten said.

"There are fifteen of us," Kiba said slowly, as if dictating his message to kindergarteners. "What is fourteen times three?"

"...Forty-two," Sakura said after a moments thought.

"Forty-two galleons isn't _too_ bad if we scrounge around for money," Naruto said.

"Do you know how much forty-two galleons are worth in yen?"

"...Four thousand two hundred yen?" Naruto guessed.

Shikamaru swore loudly.

"Yup, looks like our resident genius has just calculated the cost," Kiba said smugly. "You see, people, one galleon is worth one hundred eighty two yen. Not too bad. Four galleons are worth one thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine yen. _Forty-two freaking galleons_ are worth _twenty thousand two hundred and fifty yen_. Tell me, people, who besides Gaara and the Hyuugas have that much money in their pockets? How much do you have in your pocket?"

"Uh...two knuts, ten yen, and some lint."

"Shikamaru?"

"Three galleons."

"Gaar—wait, don't want to know...next, Kankurou?"

"One galleon and a sickle."

"Ne...Tenten?"

"Three sickles..."

"Right. Now in _my pocket_, I have a Knut, a bone, and a doggy treat. Guess what people? If we try buying _everyone_ Christmas gifts, we'll be broke for a year! Except for Gaara, the Hyugas, and Sasuke. There's no way in hell we'd come out of this without a huge debt. _So_, Ino and I have devised... the GIFT BOX."

Kiba held a box up in the air. It sparkled. Ooooooh. Most of the effect, however, was wasted on Hinata and Neji, who could quite easily see through the genjutsu without even fully activating their Byakugan. But the rainbows painted on the outside of the box by Ino herself was... dazzling enough. A bit blinding, but still dazzling.

"The Gift Box is a brilliant invention made to choose who you give gifts to! Pull out a sheet of paper. They are magicked so that two people with the same slip _must_ give a gift to that person."

Everyone picked a slip of paper and looked at it with trepidation, wondering just who they would be forced to give Christmas presents to.

Shikamaru – Temari  
Gaara – Sakura  
Naruto – Hinata  
Neji – Tenten  
Kankurou – Shino

"..." Shino said to Kiba.

"Because that's who you drew," Kiba replied.

"..."

"No, it _isn't_ rigged! How _dare_ you claim such a thing!"

"…!"

"I—! Wait, that wasn't you..." It almost sounded familiar.

"…" (You're right. That silence was Neji.)

"Neji! You speak silence?" Kiba spun around and found Neji desperately shouting "…" in hopes of getting someone's attention as Tenten strangled him.

"You rigged this, you...Hyuga!" Tenten growled.

"...!" (Help…!) Neji cried again.

"No, wait!" Kiba said, pulling Tenten off. "It was completely random! Ino and I made the Gift Box. I swear to the dog spirit guardian of the Inuzuka clan that it _wasn't_ rigged!"

"Hey," Sakura said. "Your name isn't on here. And neither are Sasuke's, Ino's, Lee's, or Chouji's."

"Well Sasuke and Ino are going out, so that's a given. You think Ino's going to give a Christmas present some guy who's _not _her boyfriend? Where's the love in _that_? And Kankurou, until you tell me who you're taking to the Yule Ball, _you're off the list_," Kiba said with a maniacal grin, taking out a thick marker and striking out the Shino-Kankurou exchange viciously. "_Muahahaha_!"

Kankurou shrugged in response to Kiba's useless antics.

"Screw you."

"Damn you people who don't care about gifts..." Kiba muttered darkly. "Anyway, as for me, Chouji, and Lee, we'll be expecting candy from _all_ of you."

"What? Why?" Naruto demanded.

"Well, I just saved you _how many_ thousand yen? You guys should be _thanking_ me. And you will. In the form of candy and gingivitis. Though if one of you throw in a doggy bone, I will thank you very much." Akamaru barked. "Hey, don't be mad, Akamaru. I swear I'll let you borrow it every once in a while!" he said to his dog partner.

Everyone sweatdropped.

-----------------------------------------------

Naruto glanced at the price tag in the window Zonko's window. No way. Hinata isn't into things like that. Probably not anyway. Next store... Madam Zenadia's Magical Arts and Jewelry. Hell no.

This was it. Naruto officially hated Christmas.

During Christmastime, all of the prices for everything skyrocketed. Even worse, he couldn't find anything Hinata would like. All the gifts that he could see her with were all too expensive, and the others were just crap.

Down the road, he spotted a familiar mutt and his pet, as well as a blond girl wearing the Beauxbatons' school uniform.

"Oi, Kiba!" Naruto shouted.

The Inuzuka glanced behind him, his eyes widening as he saw Naruto. He whispered something in the girl's ear and the three (Kiba, the girl, and Akamaru) began walking faster.

"Hey! Don't ignore me!"

They broke out into a run when Kiba shoved the girl between two buildings. There was a loud crack, and then Kiba and Akamaru casually walked back towards Naruto.

"Hey, Naruto!" Kiba said. "Didn't see you!"

"Liar, you saw me and ran!" Naruto growled. He looked at where the girl should have been and found the space between the two shops empty. "That wasn't Ino. What other blond girl could possibly be interested in talking with you?"

"That's not your business," he replied idly. "Looking for a present for my precious, precious Hinata?"

"She's not your precious Hinata!"

"Jealous?"

"No!"

"Haha, I suppose you're just putting all this effort into finding the perfect gift just for any other girl?"

"I like all our girls. I'd do the same for Sakura too!"

Kiba grinned wolfishly. "Heh, I've got just the thing for you!"

"A present for Hinata?" he asked excitedly.

"Nope." He tossed a balled up piece of parchment to Naruto. It looked as if it had been scrawled quickly and was torn out of a notebook.

"A ball of paper. Thanks," Naruto said skeptically. -.-

"Not just _any_ ball of paper," Kiba said with a grin. "It's a piece of paper...with _writing_ on it! Now isn't that amazing?" He clapped his hands together gaily (or gayly) and had a sloppy grin on his face.

"What's the point? I can't give her paper!"

"...Just open it, genius," Kiba said, slapping his forehead. Honestly, it was just so strange sometimes how Naruto could come up with the most outrageously brilliant plans on the battlefield, and not even be able to understand simple concepts like _reading the message_.

Naruto opened it and Kiba recited its contents out loud with a smug face.

"Flower book, likes senzai (1) and cinnamon rolls, hates crab and eel. Keep it simple," he said. "The rest is up to you, or else I might as well take credit for the present. And then you'll have to get another! Now, I need to find my date." He glanced doubtfully at a particularly large pile of snow. "I may have lost her in the snow..."

"Actually, I think she probably Apparated away..." Naruto said with a frown. "Just how old is this girl anyway?"

Kiba grinned. "You ought to brush up on your 'detective' skills and find out yourself, Uzumaki," he said with a grin as he and Akamaru eagerly jumped in the snow. Ugh, Kiba and snow. He'd come back to the castle with his nose dripping wet probably asking Hinata to fix his pneumonia or something. He probably didn't even care about his runaway date.

Flowers. Would Hinata like flowers? Luckily, there was a store nearby that sold all sorts of flowers.

Naruto walked into Herbie's Herb Shop and found two Hyuga already in there. Hinata 'eeped' and ran out.

"H-Hey, wait! Hinata!" Naruto said, about to chase after her. After all, if they were both getting flowers for each other or something, that'd be horrible! However, Neji grabbed the back of his shirt.

"A gentleman will always give the girl a five minute head start," he said coolly.

"No, a Hyuga guy would, because once the five minutes are up, he could still see her and follow," Naruto replied. Honestly, a Hyuga would make the best stalker in the world...

Neji scowled. "...Getting flowers for my cousin?" he asked him stiffly.

"I guess not now. I mean, if Hinata's getting a flower for me, and I get one for her, that's just... crap. ...Hey, you're getting flowers for Tenten!" he said. "You guys made up?"

"Nope," he said with a forced calmness in his voice. "Tenten hates flowers. Well, she likes looking at them from a distance, but she has really bad allergies. ...She hates sour and salty food. So I think I'll get her a crate of umeboshi too..."

"Uh, don't you think she'll hate you more?"

"That's the point!"

"...You're a weird guy, Neji," Naruto sighed. "I'll never understand you. I thought you still liked her."

"She dumped me! I can't let anyone back home know that!"

'Uh oh...' Naruto thought, having already told Konohamaru, who probably told Udon and Moegi, who probably told Hanabi. The whole village probably knew by now.

"That would make me the first Hyuga in eighteen generations who got dumped!"

Naruto laughed. _I am so dead._

"Well then that means your best chances are to get back together!" Naruto said enthusiastically. He heard a dog barking outside. "You can't hide the fact that you two split up forever. When we go home in the summer, they'll realize that you two broke up and will eventually find out that Tenten dumped you!"

Neji froze. "You're right..."

"...You're right! I _am_ right! So that means you've got to get back together with Tenten before the end of the year! Ask her to the Yule ball!"

"...I only have a month!" Neji said, beginning to look frantic.

"Yes, so that means you've got to fix yourself up," the blond said eagerly, "which means you _definitely_ have to get over your anti-PDAness."

"My _what_?"

"You're anti-Public Display of Affection. ...Ness. You know... that invisible bubble around you that makes you go crazy whenever someone is within a two feet radius of you! Seriously, Tenten is the only person in Konoha who's been able to bypass that force field without having to beat you senseless. And you won't even hold her hand! When someone gets too close, one eye bulges, the other twitches and you hit the guy!"

"I do no_OOOT_!" Neji said when Naruto suddenly jumped on the Hyuga. Neji's eye twitched as he shoved Naruto off of him. "WHAT WAS _THAT_ FOR?"

"There it was! Anti-PDA!" Naruto exclaimed. "Did you see it, did you see it? It was _right there_!" He said, pointing at Neji's face up close, much to his annoyance.

"That was not a 'public display of affection' as you put it, Naruto," Neji said, swatting away the finger. "That was...that was an assault!"

"You think everything's an assault!" he said. "You're paranoid too! I bet you think that someone did that Trip Jinx on you when you tripped during the first task as an assassination attempt!"

Neji coughed. "Yeah..." he said unconvincingly. Luckily, this was Naruto we're talking about, so he bought the blatant lie. "What are you doing here?"

"Kiba said something about Hinata and flowers," Naruto said. "So I decided to stop by here to look around."

Neji frowned. "Kiba as in that idiot over there?" he asked Naruto, pointing at the window where Kiba was watching them. The Inuzuka grinned and waved in return.

"Uh yeah. Him."

Neji shook his head. That stupid mutt-boy. He was up to something.

----------------------------------

Kiba waved back at Neji and Naruto as the Hyuga pointed an accusing finger at his face in the window. It probably did look a bit suspicious, but who cares?

Naruto _was_ a fool who always screwed up other people's plans, but he was a fool who could control geniuses!

"I told you Naruto was perfect for the job," he said to Akamaru. "Look! He stopped Neji from buying the flowers! Two birds with one kunai. We stop Neji from screwing up his chances iwth Tenten, and Naruto finds out what Hinata really wants. ...I hope"

Akamaru barked as Kiba left the flower shop window and continued on their way to the Three Broomsticks. Kiba's nose twitched, detecting a familiar buggy smell as well as something that made him start to feel quite light in the head. He found Shino lingering around Gaara's store with the two Makotos and the Weasley twins as they all took turns sniffing some strange dust. Kiba frowned and decided not to ask. Maybe later. o.o

Continuing towards the Shrieking Shack, he found Temari, Ino, and Sasuke talking in a circle with Shikamaru just standing there, looking annoyed as if he were trying to concentrate and couldn't with everyone talking around him. He had a wand in hand and had a 'thinking' look on his face.

Kiba could hear Ino talking to Sasuke something about how it should be illegal to wear socks and sandals and how he shouldn't do it because it made him look stupid.

Ino turned around and waved. "Hey, Kiba!" she called out loudly. Shikamaru immediately stuffed his wand back in his sleeves, looking a bit annoyed.

"Could barely do it anyway," he muttered under his breath. "What are you doing?" he asked Kiba.

"Looking for my date!" Kiba said cheerfully. "I lost her somewhere."

"You sure she didn't run away from you?" Sasuke asked with a smirk.

"Nah, she's not the type of person to _abandon ship_," he said in return. Sasuke glared at him but only shrugged in response. "So what are you guys up to?"

"We're plotting to take over the Ministry of Magic," Temari said sarcastically. The others stifled a laugh at that. "...Why _are_ we out here?" she wondered with an afterthought. "It's _freezing_. Let's go inside."

Frowning, Kiba followed him inside the Three Broomsticks. He shrugged it off. Shikamaru was the problem here. If he wanted a free drink, he'd have to play his cards extra carefully.

--------------------------------------------------

A week had passed, and the chaos following the announcement of the Yule Ball had all but died down. Though some students had already gotten together, it was only due to luck that Sakura hadn't been successfully claimed.

Wait... _luck_?

Did luck involve sand getting in their eyes whenever boys approached Sakura? Did it include them falling into pits whenever they got too close? Pits covered by a layer of sand and dirt? Since when did luck have anything to do with a huge torrent of sand literally blowing away any single guy without a date within three feet of her?

If this was a mere coincidence, Sakura would dye her hair pink and say it's natural. Wait, she does! ...So it _was_ a coincidence. Yeah.

Neji brushed the sand out of his hair and clothes angry. "What the hell does that Sabaku think he's doing?" he growled.

"What do you think _you're_ doing?" Naruto shot back. "You don't have time to hang out with Sakura, hurry up and get Tenten back!"

"But—"

"No buts! Kiba's making a move on her!"

"WHAT?"

----------------------------------------------------

**An hour earlier**

_"WHAT?"_

_"I said, _flirt with me_," Tenten said to Kiba, holding him up by the front of his shirt. Her eyes seemed to glow red with her demonic aura. He had never felt this frightened in his life, including when Gaara nearly killed them in the chuunin exams._

_"Eh? Why?" Kiba whimpered. _

_"I want you to help me make Neji jealous."_

_He stared at her in surprise and a hint of... "Really?" ...Glee?  
_

_"Yes. He needs to see what he lost," she said arrogantly. _

_"Didn't you break up with him?" he asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow with an amused look on his face.  
_

_"It was his fault that we broke up though," Tenten said, looking annoyed. _

_Kiba frowned, thinking. "But then what's the point of mashing it in his face? You don't have a boyfriend, he doesn't have a girlfriend, and you and I are not going to go to the Yule Ball together."_

_"What? Why not?" Tenten demanded, surprised that Kiba of all people did not want to go on a date with her. Sure, she wasn't some kind of 'princess' like Ino, but she was definitely a prize! _

_"I already got a date. Besides, usage fee for me is one galleon."_

_"What usage fee?" she said. _

_"I don't ordinarily let girls use me to make guys jealous without a cost, don't you know that?" Kiba asked her with a grin. _

_"I—you—wait, what? I don't want to make him jealous as in to get him _back_! I want to get him mad that he can't get back with me!" she hissed._

_"Oh? Well why else would you start breaking up with him?" he asked, shrugging casually. She blinked. "See? You guys went along relatively fine until Fleur happened. After that, things went crazy. In fact, you didn't care that Neji's all... no-touchy until Fleur started going all 'let's play with Neji's hair'. Since he rarely lets anyone else do it, you're jealous. You broke up with him. And now, after he got you jealous, you want him jealous so he knows what it's like." _

_Besides, the fact that she jumped to conclusions and even mentioned getting Neji jealous to get him back even though Kiba had said nothing of the sort was proof enough.  
_

_Kiba grinned proudly. He had figured this all out by himself. _Without_ Ino's help. Tenten muttered darkly, rather annoyed that Kiba had understood her exact intentions. She rummaged through her pockets and reluctantly handed him the gold coin. _

_"Now flirt," she ordered. _

_Kiba put his fingers to his lips and whistled. Just seconds later, Akamaru came bounding in through the hallways. Kiba scribbled a letter and gave it to Akamaru, who held it in his jaws. His dog ran off through the hallways. _

_"What was that?" Tenten asked him. _

_"I can't just let my date think that I'm interested in another girl," Kiba said logically. _

_"Your _date_?" It had just now hit Tenten that he already had a girl. He had mentioned it earlier but... but still! "You've already asked someone to the Yule Ball? And she said _yes_?"_

_"Of course," he scoffed. "It's a rude to sound so surprised. And I'm not some procrastinator. Though I have to admit, I had to time some things out very carefully. You see, because it was hard for her to decide between me and the other guy. I needed to get my competition to find out that he wasn't her type and that she wasn't his, and then convince him subtly to go after the girl of his dreams. And after that, I had to work fast to get the girl—the first one—to go out with me instead. It was challenging, though I had a bit of help from Ino."_

_Tenten sighed. "Ugh, even _you_ beat me," she muttered. _

_"Well, if it's any consolation, you're definitely not going to be the last couple to get together," Kiba said with a grin. "On the day of the House meeting, Neji tried to lock himself in his room because I suppose the fact that you two might have broken up for good was a tad bit too much. Sakura stayed in the Ravenclaw tower to try and get him out. And Shikamaru was just too lazy to leave the couch. You told us yourself that you were the only one who went. For a while, Neji, Shikamaru, and Sakura were completely unaware of the Yule Ball. Now, with the whole Neji and Fleur issue, I'm sure that Fleur's brought the issue up at least once, so Neji knows about the Yule Ball. And Temari already started dragging Shikamaru around in her wardrobe, according to Sasuke. They're taking their kimonos to Ino so she would modify it a bit to match what she apparently considers to be 'modern style'. You know Ino... But anyway, Sakura is _completely_ unaware of the Yule Ball..."_

_"What? How could she not know about the Yule Ball? She might have missed the meeting, but she's smart! She'll have heard all the rumors about the ball and should've been able to connect the dots."_

_Kiba snickered mischievously. "That may be partly our fault. In fact, not even partly. Entirely. It's all just a part of Ino's grand plan, y'see? Anyway, then there's Naruto and Hinata, not to mention getting Neji to accept the fact that Hinata's fallen in love with an idiot. There's also a large number of other people that she's working with, to get them dates for the Yule Ball. You'd be surprised how many Durmstrang guys need help learning their 'girl talk'."_

_Tenten's eyes widened. "Wow..." she said. "Ino sure is a busybody."_

_"That's not quite the right word," Kiba said, "but you got the idea. In terms of romantic schemes devised in the name of love and manipulation, she owns us all. I'll fill you in on the details for everything. Now let's flirt." He grinned._

--------------------------------------------------------------------

And that's how it happened.

"We'll start subtle," Tenten whispered to Kiba outside at breakfast. "It might be better like that anyway. Just hang around me casually—"

"Too slow," Kiba muttered under his breath. The Yule Ball was in less than a month. He spotted Naruto stomping over to them in the snow, having fun making huge footprints. He stepped behind her and hugged Tenten from behind.

"K-Kiba!" she said, turning red with embarrassment. Or anger. Perhaps both.

"Hey, Tenten..." Kiba responded much more smoothly, imitating Sasuke in his damn 'I'm too hot for my own good' attitude. He had practiced this moments before, watching Sasuke do the very same to Ino several minutes ago. "You know... I've never realized how nice your hair is," he said, nuzzling her hair. Kinda like a dog. "It's really soft. And _cute._"

"..." It was almost obvious that Tenten was torn between enjoying the closeness that she lacked when she was with Neji or tearing Kiba apart for putting herself in such a position. And by position, it was meant very literally.

Naruto, seeing this from afar and for some reason thinking that Kiba and Tenten hadn't spotted him or the surprised look on his face, ran off, probably to report this phenomenon to Neji.

"Perfect," Kiba said. The moment Naruto had turned around, Tenten jerked away from Kiba, shuddering and hoping she didn't get any fleas. They sat down with Ino and Sasuke as they started eating their breakfast.

"I take it that you're in on your part of the plan?" Ino asked innocently.

"This is so weird," Tenten said, shaking her head. The blond girl smiled, pouring hot tea out of a thermos.

"Ah, I'm so proud of my boys," she said airily.

"Your boys?" Tenten stared at Ino, completely confused. ...WHOA! Did she and Sasuke do the deed already?-! Wait, if Ino had children, everyone would k now by now. She looked around realizing something odd. Cedric, Viktor, and a few of the other male students that usually hung around outside with then during breakfast were all gone.

"I've been teaching them," she said. "They will become masters of my art—the Valentine Technique!"

"The name doesn't make too much sense," Sasuke commented as she poured him a cup of the hot tea as well. "It's not Valentine, nor have you taken over any of their bodies."

"Fine," his girlfriend said huffily. "It's the Art of Loooove!" She grinned. She and Sasuke—much to Tenten's surprise—lifted their mugs slightly.

"Kanpai! (Cheers)" Ino said happily, downing the drink. Sasuke attempted to do the same, but suddenly remembered in mid-gulp that he disliked tea, even when the tea was warm and he was surrounded by the cold. Gagging slightly, he drank at a slightly slower pace.

Hinata, Shino, and a few others joined them for breakfast, but Tenten, Kiba, Ino, and Sasuke were still waiting for the main guests. Kiba froze, suddenly sensing a killing intent.

"Ah," he whispered to the other three. "The main star arrives. Prepare yourself, Tenten, my love. Shall I fall in battle, I wish for you to cherish our sweet five minute-long moment of love together for all eternity."For a split second, he posed dramatically and then slumped his head onto her shoulder, almost like a puppy, and smiled, nuzzling her hair affectionately.

Tenten realized why he did this as Neji stomped over almost indignantly. He hardly glanced at them for more than a second, but instead chose to glare at his breakfast with such animosity that one may have thought that it had been the _breakfast_ that had stolen his girlfriend.

"You know," Kiba said, leaning in closer to Tenten's face. "You have really nice eyes..."

The cup in Neji's hand cracked almost unnoticeably. Almost, but not quite. The tension could be sensed from miles away. Kiba, however, was doing a fine job ignoring the jounin level shinobi who was seriously considering killing him right there.

'_Why that...that _girlfriend stealer...' Neji thought, barely containing the flames of rage inside him. Lee would be proud, though not if he knew that it was not the flame of youth that Neji was carrying.

"Did you just...?" Naruto said hesitantly. "Did you just say that _Tenten_ has nice eyes?"

"Uh..." Tenten said, not sure how to respond to this.

"Aren't I allowed to compliment my friends?" Kiba said with an air of indignance, widening his eyes in mock surprise that was surprisingly convincing.

"Well, sure but—"

Tenten caught on to the role, apologizing silently to the poor blond boy who just happened to have gotten caught in the plans. "Do you think my eyes are _ugly_?"

"Well, actually..."

Tenten stared at him, not needing to _act_ angry anymore.

"YOU _DO_?-!"

"Well, it's just that they're very plain—" Naruto said, attempting to defend himself.

"WHY YOU—!"

Tenten nearly pounced on Naruto when Neji stood in front of the blond, holding Tenten by the shoulders.

"Tenten has very lovely eyes," he said stiffly. "They appear plain to those who don't bother to see it, but if one looks closely, you can see a more unique trait in them."

Kiba grinned propping his chin on his arm. "Tenten just so happens to have many nice qualities, that's all. I can't help but mention them sometimes." He stared at her butt, just to make a point.

"…"

The whole group was silent now, watching to see whether Neji would blow up or not and most were severely disappointed when Neji returned to glaring at his breakfast. Though it did seem, at least, that he had popped a vein.

Hinata coughed awkwardly. (start stutter) "I think that breakfast is almost over," (end stutter) she said, excusing herself from her seat. As if on cue, everyone else began to leave as well, some making pathetic excuses, others not even bothering to make up a reason. Naruto went for the usual Naruto bluntness level.

"This is weird. Bye."

Kiba grinned at Neji, who glared at him as a response as he got up to leave. The moment the Hyuga left, Kiba fell on the snowy ground, clutching his chest as Ino pat him on the back sympathetically.

"I thought I was gonna have a heart attack," he whimpered, hugging Ino with (anime-style) tears in his eyes.

"There, there," she said kindly.

"Hey," Sasuke said. "...That's enough hugging. Get off of her and stop the groping right now."

Kiba snickered, wiping the fake tears from his eyes. He wasn't too worried about his precarious situation. While he was carrying out Ino's plans, he would have the (somewhat reluctant) protection of Sasuke, and the slightly more enthused reinforcement of Tenten. He was relatively well-protected.

However, Kiba thought as he pulled out his wand just in case, there was no harm in being extra careful.

-----------------------------------------------

"I think she's confused. She really does seem interested in him! What if—you know—he _tempts_ her? You know what his clan is like. The whole lot of them! They have so many children, they come in litters!" Neji said to Naruto in a rushed whisper as they both headed towards their own classes, which just so happened to be in the same direction.

"She'd choose and Inuzuka over a Hyuga?" Naruto said. "I doubt it. Something weird is going on. I'm sure of it."

"You were also sure that Snape is a vamp—"

"He is! I'll prove it too you!" Naruto said. "Someday, I'll show the world he is!"

Neji shook his head. He had to get Tenten away from that guy. He was a dog! ..._Literally_! Neji and Naruto parted ways and headed towards their respective classes to continue the day lost on their thoughts.

Were Tenten and Kiba going to the Yule Ball together?

And, more importantly, was Snape a _vampire_?

((A/N: No.))

--------------------------------------------

"Naruto, what are you _doing_?" Sasuke muttered when he found the blonde sitting in the Slytherin common room working over a table.

"...Present..." he heard Naruto mutter under his breath as he continued to work over some album book, carefully placing things beneath the plastic.

"You skipped dinner to make a _book_?" he said incredulously. "We were all looking for you."

"Mm..." he mumbled, not really paying attention or even bothering to look up at them even once.

"Get in the dorm," Sasuke said, shaking his head. "Idiot."

"…"

Sasuke nearly gasped. There was _no response_! Whatever Ino and Kiba had been scheming, to get Naruto and Hinata together, it was probably working, but it was destroying the Naruto that we all knew and loved as well! Well, Sasuke didn't love the old Naruto, but he did know and like him better than whoever this was now.

"Why are you in here anyway?" Sasuke asked as he and Naruto joined the others in the Slytherin-shinobi dorms. Sasuke took a seat next to Ino as Naruto moved his stuff onto Gaara's desk, much to the kazekage's annoyance.

"The Slytherin house is the furthest house from the Gryffindors. I mapped out Hogwarts as well as I could and Gryffindor and Slytherin are on opposite sides of the castle. So Hinata can't see what I'm doing."

"Aw, that's so sweet!" Ino gushed. Maybe she could cut Naruto off of the 'To Do' list sooner than she thought. "What is that?"

"I'm making an album," he answered, focusing hard on the supplies laid out before him.

"...That's so not expensive," she said bluntly.

"..." Naruto sweatdropped. His forehead his the desk with a loud 'thunk'.

"But it's so sweet!" Ino said, correcting her error. "A handmade gift! So thoughtful!" She paused for a second. Hey... it WAS thoughtful! It was thoughtful and sweet and cute and adorable and all sorts of other cuddly-able things that she wanted Sasuke to be like with her. "Sasuke! Why aren't you like that!" she said, smacking him upside the head.

"Eh, I was afraid that she wouldn't like something that didn't cost me too much," Naruto said, frowning and ignoring the turmoil between Ino and SAsuke behind him. "So I have a backup gift. I'm saving up for it."

"What else are you getting?"

"I'm not telling," Naruto said quickly.

"So...an album," Kankurou said. "...Why the heck does that need your wand out for?"

"I'm drying and pressing flowers," the blond said. Everyone was watching him as he worked. "I've got to dry and press them. And no one tell Hinata."

"Flower pressing?" Temari said, looking at one of the pages. It _did _look nice, but she didn't know too much about that flowery girly stuff. ...Heck, now _she _wanted something handmade.

"Yeah. Kiba and Neji gave me the idea. Kiba suggested something simple, and Neji told me that she liked flower pressing," he said. "So I'm making some."

Kankurou frowned. "Just how many are you planning on making? Doesn't seem like a lot. I mean, just how many types of flowers could you get?"

"I looked through Professor Sprout's book and found about how many. I've collected... twenty-five Muggle plants and... eighty-six wizard plants."

"..." Everyone stared at him.

"You're putting so much effort into it! This is so cute!" Ino squealed.

"_What's_ cute?" Naruto asked.

"..." Okay, Naruto was _back on _the To Do list. "Nothing," she said with a sigh.

-----------------------------------------

"Slow down, slow down," Shikamaru muttered, writing down as quickly as possible. They were sitting in an empty classroom during their breaktime.

"The lyrics were... 'Come and seek us where our voices sound. We cannot sing above the ground. You may open doors if you find these: Golden metals that serve as keys. An hour long you'll have to look, And to recover what we took. One clue we give to help you seek: To each this one is all unique. There's little time, so tarry not. Lest what you seek stays here to rot. But past an hour—the prospect's black. Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.' A poem or song or something. Like a riddle. I _hate _riddles."

"Oh come on," Temari said as Shikamaru magically rearranged the words from paragraph form to more like a list. "Use that big brain of yours before it shrivels up like a...like a shrivelled up shrunken thing. It's been a while since you've used it, right?"

"I've been using it every night since the 'gof' incident," he muttered, using the acronym for the Goblet of Fire since he was just too lazy to say three more words than necessary. Not that it really mattered because the other shinobi adopted the term as well. "I've got the list narrowed down by half, by the way." He looked at the poem and repeated again under his breath.

"You said that you guys were the only ones who understood it?" he asked all of the other shinobi.

"Yes," Neji said. "The egg's rhyme was deafening, but the rest of the house described it as screechy, unbearable, and not at all anything they could understand.

"I couldn't understand it," Naruto said.

"Yes, and the rest of us were, so you don't count," Sasuke quipped.

"Shut up, bastard!"

"Idiot."

"Both of you quiet!" Sakura said, trying to think. Shikamaru was in his thinking mode, so they might as well help in every way they could: keep their mouth shut and think of any possible way this could happen.

Shikamaru looked up suddenly.

"An answer?" Sakura asked.

"Yes. Think about it this way," he said to the others.

"Wait, why don't you just tell us?" Naruto complained.

"I'm not always going to be around to answer your questions," the lazy genius said with a frown. "Anyway, what separates us from the other students here?"

"We're shinobi?"

"We eat with chopsticks!"

"We walk on trees!"

"We kill people!"

"...Uh, think a bit more simply," he said, scratching his head. "We're 'Japanese'. Or something like that. We are technically a 'different race'. We don't speak a single word of English, yet we understand everyone here perfectly. We've even adopted some of their language. I could never imagine Naruto saying 'oh bugger' or Temari going 'bloody hell' or something. But why?"

"The hitai-ate," Kiba said, with a shrug. But what did that have to do with anything.

"So what about it?" Kankurou asked.

"It translates things," Shikamaru said. "I'll show you something I tried with Ino and Temari before."

He removed his headband and spoke to them. "_Hello_. _I am thinking, where is Temari? Using my deductive reasoning, I think she is in the kitchen, because I'm rather good at reasoning where she is and is not._" He paused. "_You all clearly understand what I am saying, right? In normal, real Japanese._"

They nodded.

"_Well _NOW_ I am speaking Japanese. What I had previously spoken before was French. My exact words were, 'Hello. Confucius says, where is my lady friend at? In the kitchen, me-thinks, because I'm some kooky ol' smarty-pants.'_"

Everyone stared at him in surprise.

"You know French?" Naruto said.

"..."

"That's not the point!" Shikamaru said hastily, retying his hitai-ate. "Every single word I said before was in Japanese, right? Even now, you hear Japanese. You guys don't think at all? Even these Hogwarts people are 'speaking Japanese'. Our language. Why?

"Let me explain it to you. Translation spells are borderline dark magic. They are also very difficult to do. They read a person's mind and translate it to another person in the language they are familiar with. The spell caster must know the language to cast it on another person. Therefore it's safe to say that Dumbledore understands English and Japanese _very_ fluently. So long as your hitai-ate's translation spell is completely secure and is not wearing off, you will be able to understand every single language that the spell caster does. If you let yours completely wear out before getting it renewed like Naruto then you would slowly forget the languages. Well, not forget, but... you would no longer understand them. Quiz: Naruto, _why is this relevant_?"

"Why do you have to be a teacher _now_?" he complained. "Er, the screechy sound was a language?"

"Right. Sort of. Finally. Anyway, that leads us back to whatever language this is. Who says it's a human language. Now, to solve the riddle." He took out a piece of chalk and began to scribble on the board. _  
_

_'Come and seek us where our voices sound.  
We cannot sing above the ground.  
You may open doors if you find these:  
Golden metals that serve as keys.  
An hour long you'll have to look,  
And to recover what we took.  
One clue we give to help you seek:  
To each this one is all unique.  
There's little time, so tarry not.  
Lest what you seek stays here to rot.  
But past the hour—the prospect's black.  
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.'_

"'Come seek us where our voices sound.' ...Skip it. It's too vague. 'We cannot sing above the ground'. Tell me, what is below the ground? Think elements."

"Dirt?"

"Fire?"

"...No air?"

"Water, you idiots. 'You may open doors if you find these: Golden metals that serve as keys'. The word 'may' means it's an option. This part is a side-quest to the main task. You don't have to find these keys. 'An hour long you'll have to look and to recover what we took.' Simple enough."

"You have an hour to find it," Sakura said, nodding. "Right. What's next?"

"Also, they're taking something of yours, but they elaborate a bit more in the next two lines. 'One clue we give to help you seek: To each this one is all unique'. Still hard to guess. If they take something and the goal for you to get it back is something, then it's probably something you own, since they can't take something from some random idiot and give it to you. It's also something that you would really want."

"Like what?" Sasuke said. "We all have everything a person could want. Shelter, food, clothing, and a mission. It's not a life mission, but it's still a goal to work toward nevertheless."

"Yes, but they unknowingly give us a clue later. I don't think this was on purpose, but it does help us somewhat. 'There's little time, so tarry not. Lest what you seek stays here to rot. We all know this question: What rots?"

"Wood and dead things," they all said automatically.

Shikamaru nodded. "Considering that none of us are trueborn treehuggers and not all of us have a pet like Naruto's Vikka, Kiba's Akamaru, and Gaara's Yaksa—I'm still wondering where the heck your owl and fox is, but that's for a different time—that leaves only one thing. Not wood, not animals. _People_."

"WAIT! They're _kidnapping_ us now?" Naruto said. "I thought only _we_ did the 'evil things', as these wizard people put it."

Shikamaru sighed, finishing the last sentence quickly. "'But past the hour—the prospect's black. Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.' That just reminds you again that you have only an hour. Now, to find a bit more detail..."

"What detail?" Naruto asked. "We know all that we need to. They're kidnapping one of us and we need to find them in an hour."

"An hour and then something would kill them? Just time?" Shikamaru reminded him. "There's got to be some loop to this. They wouldn't want to repeat things or put us at too great a risk like sticking us in the Forbidden forest. No repeats. That means the hostage task would not take place in the forest. We've already done that. Think, what where else in the school could you go? Students know Hogwarts by heart now. The stairs may change every once in a while, but it's still a bit too simple yet too complex to hold the tournament indoors. So where could a person possibly go to find someone for a second task that's still on Hogwarts grounds?"

"What if it's on the other side of the world or something?" Naruto said.

"Then they wouldn't have officially said at the beginning of the school year that 'Hogwarts is hosting the Triwizard tournament'," Shikamaru said with exaggerated patience.

"Oh yeah..."

"...Think harder."

"There's the forest, the quidditch pitch, the clearance between the forest and the castle..." Sakura listed off the top of her head.

"Hagrid's hut is on the clearance. He probably wouldn't appreciate it if they hid a body in there," Shikamaru reminded them. He sighed. "How troublesome... I explained the water to you earlier. '_Come seek us where our voices sound, we cannot sing about the ground_'. What is below the ground?"

"Uh..."

Shikamaru looked half-crazed. "Sea-level. What is _below sea level_?"

They all sorely wished that they had thought to thumb through the almanac. Not that the answer wasn't obvious enough. They were just thinking in the wrong direction.

"...The quidditch pitch?"

"The sea! The sea is below sea-level!" Shikamaru said. Honestly, this was like teaching the academy students again. Much too troublesome. If he had known that he would have to show these fellow shinobi what he felt were 'basics' (and they were, by his standards) he would have... well, no, he wouldn' thave stayed in Konoha alone. Because first of all, he'd be alone and Temari would have dragged him along anyway. Second, he was still turning a new leaf, and this meant not slacking off when it could be his teammates' lives on the line.

"The second task will take place in the Black Sea," he said decisively.

After the meeting, everyone got up and left. Some were wondering why Shikamaru was getting so edgy about the upcoming events, not sure if Shikamaru saw something no one else was seeing or if Temari was drugging his water with the Makoto-Weasley twin brand of water-flavored coffee.

Others, like Neji, had something much more important on his mind.

"Kiba."

"Hey, Hyuga Number One," the Inuzuka replied blatantly.

This was the perfect chance. No one was around and the other shinobi were out spending their break time doing god knows what.

Neji grabbed Kiba by the ear and pulled him into an empty classroom.

"I've been waiting to do this forever," Neji muttered. Kiba whimpered, petting his sore ear. He had a bad feeling about this. The Hyuga had a slight gleam in his eyes, and Kiba was starting to regret flirting so blatantly with his ex.

----------------------------------------------------

"I can't believe he threatened you," Tenten said, laughing at the pale Inuzuka.

"Don't take this so calmly! My life is in danger!" Kiba cried, having lost any sense of confidence he had felt a week ago. "I thought you were going to protect me!"

"I'm sure he was just bluffing," she said gleefully, waving a hand at him casually. "Neji wouldn't...he wouldn't do... oh crap, he would. And your life _is_ in danger," she said thoughtfully.

"Gaaaah!" Kiba clutched his head, writhing and jumping around in the library as if he needed to go to the bathroom. "What am I supposed to do now? This might've been my plan, but it's a stupid plan! Your boyfriend is an idiot who does _not_ take action when he needs too! The plan was _not_ to try and get him to kill me! It was to get him jealous enough to tell _you_ to break it off with _me_, _not_ me to you! What do we do now? I have no back-up plan!"

"The Yule Ball is in a week. We just need to do something to get his attention!"

"Tenten, I think this is a bad idea. I already have enough attention."

"Fine, _I_ need his attention. ...And I've got a plan. We'll have one last show tonight at dinner," Tenten promised, taking hold of Kiba's out-of-control plans. "One last show and all you have to do is get him to 'confront' you in any way, shape or form."

Kiba sighed.

Later at dinner, Tenten had Kiba sitting next to her at the Ravenclaw table. Directly across from Neji.

"So," Tenten said casually. "What are you wearing for the Yule Ball?"

"Uh, probably the stuff Sakura sent from Sunagakure back in October," he said. "Ino's fixing everyone's clothes though, so it'll probably look different."

"I can tell," Tenten said with a laugh. "Looks like all of us are going to Ino. She's going crazy with the designs she sketched out for me. Completely redoing my outfit and everything."

Unlike her previous performances with Kiba in front of Neji, she sounded less tense and more relaxed. Kiba took a deep breath, prayed for a quick death, and kissed her on the cheek.

"So, can I hope that your gown will be as pretty as you," he said in her ear, yet loud enough for others to hear. A cheesy line, but Kiba's close proximity with Tenten was enough to rile Neji's feathers. Figuratively speaking, of course.

"_Why are you going out with him anyway_?" Neji asked suddenly, silencing all talking at the Ravenclaw table.

"He's sweet, funny, not scared of women, cute, caring, has a huge puppy—"

"_And fleas_," the Hyuga reminded her.

"No I don't!" Kiba interjected.

"Well I _would've_ gone with _you_, but you're a prick!"

"You're plain! I didn't expect you to pick up a date so fast! Wait, no that's not what I meant to say—oooow! Owowowow!"

Tenten now had her fingers pinching Neji's ear and was forcing the Hyuga to bend down to the level of her hand. "TAKE THAT BACK!"

"OKAY, OKAY, I TAKE IT BACK!"

"AND SAY YOU'RE SORRY!"

"I'm sorry! Let me go...!" he whimpered.

She ignored his request and continued to shout at him. "AND YOU'RE GOING TO DO EVERY THING I TELL YOU TO DO!"

"Okay!" he said, silently praying that she'd let go and not tell him to do something incredibly demeaning, such as cutting his hair for good.

"Good," she said, releasing him. "Now, bring your dress robe-kimono to Ino and tell her to make ours match each others because _you _and_ I_ are going to the Yule Ball _together_."

Neji frowned. Aside from the ear-pinching, that wasn't altogether too bad.

...Uh, and that was how Neji and Tenten got back together.

"WILL YOU GO TO THE BALL WITH ME?" someone shouted from across the hall.

Everyone turned around to find Ron Weasley, standing at the entrance near Fleur Delacour. He seemed stunned by the words that had slipped out of his mouth and stood there in horror of what he had just done.

Kiba watched with amusement and snickered as the Weasley's face turned an insane shade of red and ran out of the Great Hall. At the Gryffindor table, Ino looked rather surprised as well and suddenly stood up, as if she had forgotten something.

She quickly snatched Kiba from the Ravenclaw table. "You deal with Naruto and Hinata, I just realized something," she hissed. Ino left at a quick pace, leaving Kiba to wonder just what Ino was up to now.

But all thoughts were banished as Kiba spotted Naruto walking towards his seat at the Gryffindor table.

"Hey!" Kiba said, jogging over to the blond. "So," he said in a lower voice. "Didja figure out what to get for Hinata?"

Naruto grinned. "I've made a flower pressing book," Naruto said proudly. "_And_ I'm saving up for a back-up gift!"

"...Back-up?" Kiba repeated. He hadn't expected something like that. It was a pleasant surprise. Hinata would like anything Naruto gave him, so two gifts were just as good. Plus, Ino would think it was extra cute or something and, perhaps, give him a bonus for 'helping' Naruto with what Ino would call his 'evolution' from idiot to boyfriend. This was all just for Hinata of course. She was like a very close, sweet, cute, shy, hot sister. Oh, and the money on the side that he was getting from Ino wasn't too bad either.

"I'm not telling anyone about it yet," Naruto said. "I don't want anyone to figure it out. And I think it looks really good!"

Alarms went off in Kiba's head. Uh oh. Naruto thinks something looks good?

"It's not orange, is it?"

"No."

"Yellow?"

"No."

"Pink?"

"_No_."

"Some other absurd shade of color that Hinata doesn't prefer or that people in general do not like?"

"_No_!" Naruto said firmly. "I like it, the shopkeeper likes it, and so do a whole bunch of other people, because I had to ask the lady specially to keep others from buying it. It really does look good! I even asked Fleur!"

Fleur, eh...?

Kiba grinned.

---------------------------------------------

"Ron, what happened to _you_?" Harry said. He had been sitting in the common room when his best friend was helped into the room by a bunch of sympathetic looking Gryffindor students, looking rather shaky.

Ino entered the room, wincing at the sight of the traumatized boy.

"He just asked Fleur Delacour out," she said.

"What?" Hermione yelped.

"What did she say?" Harry asked.

"No, of course," Hermione said, sighing sadly, but to her surprise, Ron shook his head. "She said _yes_?"

"Don't be silly," the Boy-Who-Lived said.

"There she was, walking by..." Ron said, with his eyes glazed over. "You know I like it when they walk. I couldn't help it. It just sort of slipped out..."

"Actually," Ino said, "he sort of screamed at her. It _was_ a bit frightening."

"What did you do then?" Harry asked.

"What else?" Ron asked. "I ran for it. I'm not cut out for this, Harry. I don't know what got into me..."

"Well how did you know she would've said no?" Hermione said, looking almost sad for him. "Sure, you're not that great a 'looker', but you're halfway decent. There _was_ a tiny chance that she might've said ye—"

"Nope," Ino said, shaking her head. "She's already going out with someone."

"Who?" some Irish guy said, looking surprised.

"They're keeping it a secret," the blond girl said. "But...I _do_ know who it is. Believe me, if you had asked her sooner, there might've actually been a chance. Unfortunately, he got to her before you did..."

"This is mad," Ron whimpered. "Only a week left. At this rate, we'll be the only ones in our year without dates."

"Wait, no, not the only dateless guys. There's always the two Sabaku guys," Harry said. "They're way to intimidating to—"

"Actually..." Ino said guiltily. "No."

"Naruto?"

"Working on it."

"Neji?"

"Just got back with Tenten as of six minutes, seventeen seconds ago."

"Kiba?"

"You'd never have believed it."

"Sakura?"

"Mm, she's taken."

"Hinata?"

"Nope."

"SHINO?"

"Actually, Shino has a date, but he's not telling," Ino said.

"Oi, now I'm _really_ depressed," Ron said, sighing. If Shino of all people had a date, then they were doomed. Good-looking under layers or not, Ron couldn't understand why on earth any girl would want to date a guy with no face. "Well, Hermione..."

"What?"

"_You're_ a girl..." he said with a suddenly thoughtful look. Immediately, Ino ran to the back of the room so Hermione couldn't see her and began to wave her arms wildly, frantically trying to get him to stop right there.

"Oh, well spotted," Hermione said scathingly.

"Oh, come on," Ron said, completely oblivious to Ino's near-hysteric gestures. Harry frowned at Ino, confused. "It's one thing for a bloke to show up alone..."

Harry immediately understood what Ron was getting at and why Ino seemed to be having a seizure. He dove towards Ron (in slow motion) trying to intercept his friend before he got the words out.

"For a girl," Ron said (still in slow motion), "it's just sad."

Alert! Alert! Interception: failure! Prepare for violence and feline-like wrath and/or scathing words!

"I _won't_ be going alone because, believe it or not, someone has already asked me," Hermione said hotly, looking rather furious. "And you know what? I said _yes_."

Ino made strange gestures, almost as if she was trying to choke Ron through the air.

"Bloody hell," Ron said as Hermione stormed off. "...What was that all about?"

"You idiot!" Ino said, smacking the back of his head. "If you want to ask a girl out, you _DO NOT_ make it sound like a last choice! How would you like it if I did the same to you? Alright, 'hi, Ron, there are no more guys left for the Yule Ball, so I guess I'll have to settle for you!'"

"Really?"

"No!" Ouch! "I'm going with Sasuke!"

Damn, he lost to a Slytherin...

"What are you doing here anyway?" Ino asked Harry. "Shouldn't you be at dinner?"

"Nah, I just got back from the Owlery," he said, looking slightly embarrassed. "Er, and got turned down by Cho."

Ino gasped and choked back laughter, covering her mouth as if she were shocked.

"WHAT?" Ron said. "Who's she going with?"

"Cedric Diggory," Ino answered.

"How'd you know?"

"I'm the 'Gossip Queen' at this school. I know everything that has to do with the Yule Ball." That and, like the current Viktor-Hermione-Ron incident, she had helped Cho and Cedric get together with her Dating sessions.

"Ugh," Ron said. "Harry, we're doomed."

"Don't worry," Ino said. "I've got you covered. Ron, you've got a little sister, right? Ginerva Weasley?"

"Er, yeah. It's usually Ginny though. But she's scared of Harry—"

"Because she likes him. Hold on." Ino took out a piece of white stationary and what looked like a Rita Skeeter's quill, only purple. Harry looked at it nervously as the quill scribbled across the page. Once it was through, Ino folded the first one.

"Give this one to Ginny, saying it's from Harry. And...Ron, I'm setting you up with Lavender Brown."

"WHAT?" Before Ron could stop her, Ino shoved the flowery stationary parchment in his hand and ran off to deliver a letter to Lavender.

------------------------------------------------------------

"Alright, people, last lesson!" Ino called, collecting galleons, sickles, and knuts in a can. "You've all got dates, right?"

There was a murmur of mostly affirmative answers. "Great! Now here's what you do at the dance! Dance lessons are last! I will first show you the basic conversation skills and smaller mandatory details to your manners."

Sasuke paused. "What?"

"We'll be teaching them the appropriate conversation topics and how to divert one's attention when you have no idea what the heck to say."

"No...before that."

"...Dancing lessons?"

Their gaze met, and Ino's bright blue eyes widened in fear.

"Don't tell me..." she whispered, shaking her head, not sure how to respond to this. "This isn't true..."

"It is," Sasuke muttered.

"..." She took a deep breath and shouted out to the others. "Diggory! Krum!" she barked out. "Congratulations on getting girlfriends. Had you moved any slower, hell would have broken loose and I would have to find different girls for you."

"Thank you?" Cedric said, confused.

"Great, now that you two are experts and graduates, you may now take over the class, as Sasuke and I have got to go," Ino said. "I'll be back in an hour, my notes are on the desk and it's all color-coded. Bye."

"...Vot?"

Ino grabbed Sasuke's arm and dragged him out of the classroom, leaving everyone staring at their disappearing backs in a shocked silence. Viktor and Cedric looked at each other nervously and both jumped forward to leaf through all of Ino's documents.

Viktor muttered something in Bulgarian, looking pale.

"Whatever you said, you've got that right," Cedric said, shaking his head. He always thought that Ino was a sensible girl. Or maybe she _was_ sensible. Maybe he was crazy.

Because he could've sworn that just a minute ago, her notes were _not_ written in Japanese.

'I can't read Koreanese!' he mouthed silently to Viktor, who stared at the color-coded, scented parchment in horror.

Viktor and Cedric traded nervous glances and looked over their shoulders, back towards the expectant class.

"…"

-----------------------------------------------

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU CAN'T DANCE!" Ino shouted, flames practically pouring out of her mouth as Sasuke stared at the ground in embarrassment.

"...You'd make a good Uchiha," he muttered.

"Oh my god," she groaned, covering her face. "This is horrible. I'm totally behind schedule! I've got a dress for Sakura, Tenten, myself, Ron—"

"Ron's dress?"

"Yeah, I'm...I'm fixing it right now," she muttered.

"Well, don't bother with Sakura's. It looks fine."

"I already started on it!"

"No you haven't," Sasuke said with a smirk. "Because Gaara got her a different one. I told you before, remember?"

Ino stared at him, a smile growing on her face. "I had totally forgotten about that!" Ino said, taking out a list and crossing a name off. "That's one more off. And one more on... Why the heck didn't you go to the House Meeting to learn to dance?"

"Do you have _any_ idea how it would be like to learn how to dance from _Snape_ of all people? Snape AND Anko? I can't even tell who's worse! I hate Snape and Anko hates me. And I hate them both!"

"Hates you?"

"Well, if not hate... then she 'strongly dislikes me'. ...Which basically just translates back into hate."

Ino took a deep breath. "I can get through this. I can honestly get through this. Neji and Tenten are back together. Gaara is getting ready to kill someone any day now, so sooner or later, he'll get to asking Sakura—hopefully sooner rather than later. Temari and Fleur are helping me with the dresses, making it a bit more Westernized... Kiba is working with Hinata and Naruto right now... All I have to do is finish the dresses and it's all good."

She took a deep breath and smiled. "I'm not going to let you humiliate me. I'll teach you to dance if it _kills_ you."

"Usually, the phrase is 'if it kills me'."

"Kill _you_," Ino corrected under her breath as grabbing his hand. "You lead, one hand in my hand, one on my back," she ordered.

Sasuke complied. Sort of.

"This alright, Ino?"

"...On my _BACK_, Uchiha. Hands higher and stop feeling me up!"

"What? It's a compliment..."

She hastily smacked his hand away. "No jokes! We have one week until the Yule Ball and this is the last bit of free time in my schedule, though this time was _supposed_ to be dedicated to _my students_!"

----------------------------------------------

_Meanwhile..._

"..._And then_," Cedric said, dramatically to the other students. Their eyes were wide in amazement as he told his tale of chaos and treachery. His voice was low in suspense. "...I invented _The Spork_™ (2)."

-------------------------------------------------

A half hour later, Ino was ready to pull her hair out and scream. Well, not her hair. She'd never risk damaging her own hair. But she was sorely tempted to pull Sasuke's, if it weren't for the fact that, champion or no, she would _never_ degrade herself, dancing with someone bearing a dreaded bald spot. No, she'll have to resort to the hair pulling _after_ the Yule Ball.

"Let's try this again," she said, taking in a deep breath for the fifth time. "Now, put your hand on my—DAMMIT, NOT THERE AGAIN YOU PERVERT! I'M SERIOUS HERE!"

Screw waiting, Ino grabbed his bangs and twisted it.

"Aaaah! Ino, sorry, sorry, I'll take this seriously now!"

"YOU MEAN YOU WEREN'T BEFORE?-!"

A few minutes and a short scuffle later, Sasuke (having been violently subdued) stared at his feet like a kicked puppy. "So, um...you move?"

"Yes. You lead. Because, obviously, you're a guy."

"Like this... It _is_ like that, right, Ino? Yeah, okay, it's like that..."

"…"

Close enough. Ino sweatdropped when the Great Uchiha... tripped. Ino cried.

"No! Nonono! You coordination worse than... than Neji on stilettos!"

"...NEJI WORE STILETTOS?-!"

"Last year during a festival, Tenten got him drunk..."

"Dammit, I missed it..."

"Actually, for a drunk on stilettos, he was extraordinarily well-coordinated. I just wish I had a moving picture though... Haha."

"Still, right now, it's all about _you_. And _not_ in a good way. Honestly, you can run miles, do all sorts of complicated katas, jump out windows and run down walls, and do _all_ _sorts_ of crazy stunts, but when it comes to dancing, you have all the coordination of a drunken _wizard_. Step _this_ way first, alright? Follow me."

"I hate dancing..."

"I know." Things went well for fives seconds.

"NOOOOO! Argh, if only you knew how silly you look, Uchiha Sasuke."

"Ah, I'm learning... A bit slowly..."

"A _BIT_ slowly? We've been at it for almost an hour already!"

"I honestly think you're exaggerating a bit too much, Yamanaka Ino," Sasuke said teasingly. Ino would have turned to putty in his arms if it hadn't been for the fact that he stepped on her bruised foot for the umpteenth time. "...Coordinated people. Who needs them anyway?"

"I'm not going to comment on that," Ino said scathingly. Sasuke stumbled again. "Try _not_ to fall over when we turn, won't you?" she asked in a falsely sweet voice. "Ow! Why don't you just watch me dance with someone else and just sharinganify it?"

"That's an insult to the greatest bloodline in the history of Konoha."

"What?" Ino asked with a fake smile. "The word 'sharinganifying'? Or is it the thought of the esteemed Uchiha using the great Sharinganifier for such a 'demeaning task'? Because I can think of something much more horrible than _that_? For example...showing up at the Yule Ball unable to dance a few simple steps."

Sasuke winced. "Rhumba," he said derisively. "That sounds like that English thing where you serve strawberries with pie."

"No, that's _rhubarb_," Ino corrected. "Don't you go getting words mixed up on purpose. You know you like the rhubarb just as much as I do, and you had _better_ not say that you only like it because I do."

Sasuke scowled petulantly.

"_Rhumba_ is just four steps. Step forward, step back, with the same foot. Step back, step forward, with the other foot. And do it again."

With only a few small skirmishes and minor injuries, they finally managed to get it right, in theory. He no longer stomped on her toes, getting the steps right, but...

...It looked nothing like dancing, with his practically robotic footwork.

"See?" he said accusingly. "I can't dance!"

"If you can do things like Lee's Kage Buyo, you can dance."

Sasuke groaned. Anyone feel an ulcer coming on?

-------------------------------------------------

Kiba stared at Ino that night as the exhausted blond came hobbled into the Gryffindor common room. He sat up immediately, looking the disheveled look of her hair and her obvious limping.

"Who mauled you?" he exclaimed. "Just how many wizards ambushed you?"

"It was only one person, and it wasn't a wizard," she muttered.

Kiba helped her to the couch. "What do you mean by that?"

"...Dance lessons."

"All of your students are _that_ bad?" Kiba said, looking worried.

Ino gasped. "I forgot to get back to them!" she said in horror.

"What? Then how many other people were you dancing with?"

"...One, I said. Sasuke."

Kiba face-vaulted.

--------------------------------------------------

Rumors were flying at the speed of light, spreading throughout the school like the plague.

"I don't get what's going on," Sakura sighed.

Gaara nodded. "Mm-hm." He turned around and downed his coffee in one gulp. She sighed.

"That's so unhealthy," she said to him. She looked around. "I haven't seen Kakashi-sensei recently..."

"So?"

"I heard from some loony girl in my house who heard from a twin also from my house who has a sister in the Gryffindor house that was talking to Lavender who claims that he's sneaking a girl to Hogwarts. Or out of Hogwarts or something. All I know is that he's planning something. He's not supposed to go bring Kurenai back to the castle anyway."

"What?"

"Yeah, it sounds like some kind of weird conspiracy," she said. "Of course, this is the same girl who said that Draco Malfoy asked Hinata out."

"Didn't hear anything about that," Gaara said, glancing down the Slytherin table. "All I heard was that he, Coil, and Grab—"

"That's Crabbe and Goyle," Sakura said, giggling.

"...Whatever. He, Crabbe, and Goyle went near her, she freaked out, and she kicked them all. It was low. Literally."

She laughed. "Yup. What Ino claims happened was really a mixture of both."

Gaara shook his head. It was now or never. "So...did you...gidatfryeble...?"

"…"

Gaara mentally beat up himself for being so inarticulate.

"Sorry, what?"

"Did.You. Get. A. Date. For. The. Yule. Ball?"

Sakura stared at him. "You too?" she asked incredulously.

"...What?" That wasn't as bad as an outright 'No, I refuse to go with you' but that definitely was not the first the response he wanted to hear.

"A whole bunch of guys have been asking me about that," Sakura said.

Gaara stared at her, suddenly aware of Kiba and Ino suddenly spotting them, looking excited, and making a genjutsu-repelling handseal. Those meddling idiots.

He'd have to thank them later.

And then proceed to killing them.

"Did you get a date for the Yule Ball?" he repeated, re-enunciating each word.

For a moment, Sakura stared at him blankly. Then, very slowly, her eyes widened.

"OH!" Many people overheard her loud cry. Sakura covered her mouth and turned red.

"The Yule Ball! Oh my god, how could I have been so stupid?" she said, hitting her forehead repeatedly until Gaara grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop. If he hadn't, she would've probably cracked her head open with her abnormal strength. And _then_ where would he be? No chance for a date at all.

Not that he would actually _consider_ this a date.

It would be too weird to be a date. Because he's Gaara. Gaara no like mushy crap.

"I don't have a date! Why didn't I remember until just now?" she said. "Dangit, I bet everyone's taken already! Even _Kankurou's_ got a date."

...He'd have to ask his brother about that phenomenon later. But he had higher priorities right now.

"Not...really..." he managed to choke out. "About... everyone taken, I mean..."

"...Okay, okay, there _are_ some guys who don't have dates, I'm sure, but I don't want to go with some loser."

"…"

Sasuke, who was sitting nearby, choked on his morning dose of pudding, laughing. Gaara glared at him darkly. "I can't understand why that would be funny. Someone without a date can still dance at least, Left Feet."

This wiped the grin off his face. Sasuke was stuck between angry and surprised. HOW DID HE KNOW?

(Because this is Gaara we're talking about.)

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing," Sasuke said quickly. Sakura just shook her head with a sigh.

"Dangit," she mumbled. "I feel like hitting something, right now..." Gaara scooted a seat away.

"Then I should move a bit before asking," he said.

"I wasn't serious!" Sakura said. "Seriously, I—"

"Wouldyougototheballwithme?"

"—didn't mean it!" she said. Wait...what?

Wood a goatee the ball whammy?

_Wait a minute..._ Sakura frowned, slowly digesting this Gaara's coded message.

Would you...

Go to...

The ball...

With me...?

These words echoed in her head for a moment.

"Uh...Sakura?" Kankurou said, taking a seat next to her. "...You've been sitting there for five minutes now, and Gaara looks like he's about to shit himself."

"I DO NOT! And you're going with the loon aren't you!" Gaara exclaimed.

"...Hey, I'm not talking to you," Kankurou said, teasingly. "I'm talking to your _girlfr—_"

May he die a thousand deaths!

The next thing Kankurou knew, a tendril of sand wrapped itself around his leg and threw him across the room.

Sakura laughed.

"Well, we're exchanging gifts. Might as well go," she said, taking a deep breath and smiling. "As friends, right?"

"Uh... yeah... Friends," Gaara muttered.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

(1) Senzai is soft bean jam.

(2) The Spork. It's official. Cedric's a genius after all. Thanks luckyye(numberhere) for helping me with that part.

------------------------------------------------

**My Thinking Corner**

I've realized recently that I've been neglecting Kakashi recently, so I decided to make a few small scenes with him. Two, to be exact. Both at the end of the chapter, I suppose. Not this one, by the way. This is the first. The second in the next. I actually had no idea how Gaara would ask Sakura out. I had troubles with that.

Anyway, yes, that's how Neji and Tenten got back together. Romantic, eh?

Hm...I hope I haven't been ignoring too many of the characters. I realized it recently and fell out of my chair. So if any of you want a special character scene or anything, just name the character I've ignored and I'll see what I can do.

Also, I haven't been updating as constantly as I've used to. During the summer, I played a lot and studied a bit. Now, I'm at school, preparing for a shitload of tests. Ugh, I've put everything off.

Anyway, two people asked for a short story about two characters, so here it is. I have no idea where it is in my timeline, but here it goes...

**aznelements**: Gaara and Naruto working together could cause the destruction of the world as we know it, haha.  
**Kinuye** **Ayabito**: You're right. Fire and ice don't mix very well. Sorry I make you look crazy!   
**Anonomys**: It's nice to know that I can kill people with my work for a career. I'd make the best internet assassin out there. "_I am the internet assassin and I shall laugh you to death!_" And thank you for suggesting "The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto" by 'General Grievous'. (repeating it for the sake of readers who need something to read as well.  
**celtic-pride**: Thanks for reviewing. With so many other readers eager for the Yule Ball and Second task as well, I'll write it to the best I can! (salutes)  
**Anonymous**: Haha yup. Everyone's running in fear, trying to find a date before someone else. However, the pairings you mentioned won't be exactly the same, because of certain reasons that I don't feel like thinking about right now. And no, Neji won't end up like Lockhart. That Memory Charm was cast by an idiot with a broken wand that wasn't even fit for him. And I do hope the chapters will be as good as you are expecting. And thanks for the warning about the Jinchuuriki. I read the manga recently and was like 'oh shit!' But thanks to you, after three nights of staying away to think of reasonable excuses, I've finally found one. I'm also making it so that some things in this fiction haven't happened yet and others have. I haven't really decided about everything so far for sure, but...thanks! And I'm surprised that you've remembered something like that from so far near the beginning! It's the perceptive readers who remember the smaller details that I like getting reviews from.  
**Too lazy to get an account…:** The first part of your review made me laugh. As for the "she", you mean Hermione right? And yeah, I watched the first movie recently during the summer (before school started, of course) and I was like, O.o. They're _tiny_! Like...like shrimp! Or freshman! ...Or freshman shrimp! ...Yum. And how can you act Out Of Character? What's your 'In Character' mode...? Anyway, the really really really short story at the end of this fic is dedicated to you, for showing me that I had completely forgotten about him. Of course, it's not very funny. Mainly because that's not even a major part of the whole thing. The short story will be _after_ this one. It's like an introduction or a prologue or something. Anyway, I'm glad you reminded me of him. Can't believe I _forgot_ him. (falls over)  
**rain2187**: Yup. Ino's a bit nosy when it comes to other people's relationships. She's just securing it with Sasuke so that no girl can ever steal him away, muahahaha! Anyway, that's how it started at least. I _may_ explain it in more detail later.  
**question**: I think someone else may have asked me that as well, but... the end will be in ten chapters _at least_. That's without my sidetrips. I tend to stray off course from the plot and end up adding a whole bunch of relatively insignificant things. In fact, right now, I'm thinking about making ANOTHER party-ish thing. So 10 chapters minimum, though I may have said that 10 chapters ago. If you want a more accurate prediction, you may want to ask me once I'm at the second task, though it'll probably take a while. Now that I think about it, I'm becoming hesitant about my guess and am now thinking 10-15, but...maybe not. Y'see, it's when I think about how many chapters I'm going to have that I get nervous. Hehghehe.  
**Anonomys**: Haha. XD What comic strip is this?   
**fallen-angel**: Thanks for reviewing!  
**set jerro**: That sounds interesting. Do you mind telling me what it's about? (I don't really have a lot of time nowadays to read  
**Shadow-Sess-Marlfox**: Yeah, the GaaraSakuraness isn't too funny. For that couple, I'm trying to focus on when they give each other presents since that's the part lacking humor so far. (though I'll probably manage to stuff it full of random nonsense by then). As for your bish (I can imagine some girl going "Itachi is mah bitch"), he'll be in the third task, I hope.  
**darkflame**: Haha, okay, lightning it is. Though for that, you'll have to wait for maybe the fifth or sixth year. By then, I may forget, so if I do, feel free to remind me. (sweatdrops)

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Anko snickered, following Hogwart's resident 'vampire' around in Hogsmeade. She had been sorely disappointed when, after following him, he had not stopped by a single store to buy her anything. He said he was going to buy her something!

He walked RIGHT past Honeyduke's, the bastard!

And so she planned her revenge.

She crept behind him, jumping behind objects to keep herself hidden from view.

The snow was fresh and deep. Her legs sank in the snow up past her ankles. Jumping up and down for a bit, she yelped quietly as she had to wait a moment for the snow to melt into slush between her toes. She reminded herself for the forty-eighth time since the end of November to get some good boots. It kept on slipping her mind.

Wait, what was she thinking about again?

Oh yeah, chicken.

But this wasn't a time to think of her feet. Wait, feet? No, her stomach. She was thinking about chicken so she could wear it on her feet. No! Not her feet again! Because she was HUNGRY. Why was she thinking something about feet?

Oh wait, the target was getting away.

She crept faster, searching for Sevvie-poo and was about to turn at a building when—

SPLAT!

"Ngyow!" Anko said incoherently as she fell to the ground. She rolled around a bit in the snow when she realized this wasn't helping her one bit. ((A/N: Ironically, that's the noise I make when I'm surprised, too.))

She angrily wiped the snow off of her face and glared at the perpetrator.

It was Uchiha Sasuke, the evil Sharingan wielding Orochimaru-following copycat (how dare he get the cursed seal like her! She wasn't so special anymore!)

"Uchiha Sasuke..." she growled, pointing an accusing finger at the cocky Uchiha, who tossed another snowball up leisurely in the air.

"Mitarashi," he replied casually.

Anko scooped up a snowball of her own. Sasuke's widened and turned red. She tossed it at the dark-haired shinobi.

Yesyesyes! It was gonna hit, it was gonna—

OH NO IT WASN'T GONNA HIT!

Sasuke ducked down at the last minute (darn him and his sharingan perception abilities...!) and...

_Oh no._ Anko closed her eyes, not sure whether to laugh, cry, or freak out.

The snowball continued to hurtle through the air at the speed of light.

Right.

At.

Sevvie-poo.

'_Crap, crap, crap, crap, craaaaap!_' she thought, like a chant in the back of her mind.

And, of course, both Anko and Snape had really bad luck. Which meant their bad luck must have combined forces to plague them both to even a greater extreme.

Why was Anko so sure of this alliance of bad luck?

Because it was right then and there that Severus had decided to turn around.

Time froze as Severus Snape, the most feared teacher in Hogwarts' history, found his face covered in snow.

He knew immediately who was immature, stupid, and psychotic enough to even do such a thing in his presence.

"Mitarashi..."

Don't answer him, he doesn't see you.

"I know you're there. Come out now and suffer a debilitating death."

"...Don't you mean 'or'?" she called.

No no no no NO! I said DON'T answer, idiot!

Too bad for Anko. Severus heard her voice coming from behind a barrel of Madam Rosmerta's firewhiskey.

"_Evanesco_," he said, waving his wand and Vanishing the barrel, revealing Anko, who had been cowering behind it. He reached a hand up to his face and wiped it, wiping the snow off with his hand.

"Uh...hi, Sevvie!" she said, waving cheerfully. She shook her head violently left and right, causing the slightly melted snow to fly off her own face.

"…"

She winced as he began to wave his wand arm again. He held his wand up shoulder-level.

_Oh_...

He whipped the wand towards her...

_No..._

However, instead of some kind of literally gut-wrenching curse, Anko began to run in fear of a much more frightening fate.

"Sev...Sev'rus, it was an accident, I swear. I was aiming for that damned Uchiha kid!" she said, backing away in the face of death.

"Ge...gyaaaah!"

THUNK!

…

Thunkthunkthunkthunkthunk!

The next thing Anko knew, she was buried under a pile of snow, after being assaulted by dozens of speeding snowballs.

Snape had a sense of humor. Who'da thunk it?

"DAMMIT!" Anko cried, jumping out of the snow and yipping like a dog as she shook the snow out of her clothes. It wasn't too hard to do, considering it was actually a lot of revealing fishnet under her jacket, but that didn't help get rid of the cold much better. She should've just bought a damn robe or something. "I'M SOAKED! THIS MEANS WAR, CAULDRON BAT!"

...Cauldron bat?

"You're on," he said coolly.

**One debilitating defeat later...**

"Ah-choo!"

"It was your fault in the first place," Snape quipped when she glared at him. He handed her the Pepper-up potion.

They were sitting in his private potions lab with the fire on at full power (there was Low, Medium, High, and Inferno) and Anko, wrapped up in all of Snape's blankets (much to his chagrin and her 'hah, take that's), wiped her nose on her sleeve in vain.

"I've got pneumonia!" she shouted. "I'm gonna die because of you!"

"Don't be silly, pneumonia won't kill you," he said.

"Really?" she asked. "Your potion is that strong?"

"Yes. I am proud to say that our medicine seems to be much stronger than whatever medicine your home village has," he said. "In any case, you would never die of pneumonia. I would think the personification of pestilence would die of something much more worthy. Like being trampled by a horde of rampant bicorns. Or some lethal strain of syphilis."

"Gee, thank you. But this is all your fault!"

"Is not."

"Is too!"

"You declared war."

"Well I waved a white flag after the first three times you dumped me in a pile of snow!" she hissed, sneezing again.

"Well, I have to say, it _was_ amusing."

"For _you_ maybe," she muttered. She sneezed again and wiped the snot from her nose. "Eeeeew."

"That is disgusting, Mitarashi," he said disdainfully. He frowned. His assistant had a demonic gleam in her eye. "Hey... _Hey._ Don't... Mitarashi, don't you dare even _think_ of it. Don't touch me, your hand is contaminated!"

He stood up and backed away from Anko, who had a crazed grin on her face.

"I swear to Merlin that if you even _brush_ my _arm_ with your mucus, I will cut it off and—MITARASHI...!"

So, by the end of the day, both Anko and Snape had gotten what they had always wanted from each other. The sweet taste of vengeance. (muahahaha)

-------------------------------------

Kakashi hummed as he strolled down one of the few roads in Hogsmeade, going from store to store as he prepared for his mission. He passed by the Hog's Head and wisely chose to continue straight forward without any side trips. Besides, no one wanted dusty liquor.

He stopped in front of the Three Broomsticks and smiled, though this went unseen under his facemask. Stepping through the door, he looked inside. There weren't too many customers today. Most likely because the majority of her customers where students from Hogwarts.

Still, there was a decent number of people in the room, enough to keep a person busy, but Kakashi wasn't surprised when Madame Rosmerta approached him with her usually bubbly behavior.

He liked Rosmerta. Nice woman. Curvy. And very well known to wizards, witches, goblins, and all sorts of weird things around the world. Even the Minister had known of her.

Of course, during her short period here, it was obvious that Kurenai had despised her.

So nice, having women clawing over one another over him.

The more competition he had, the tighter a hold Kurenai attempted to reinforce upon him. The attention itself was graitfying.

"So, Professor Kakashi," she said with a smile. "Will you at least have a drink today?"

"I'm afraid not," he replied with a smile, not really bothering to correct 'Professor' with 'assistant'. "I'm only here to pick up a few drinks and bring them back to my office."

"It's not ethical to bring these drinks onto school grounds," she said, _tsk_ing at him. "Especially with students around."

"Worry not, Madame, I have no qualms with contaminating children with my habits," Kakashi said with a mock bow. Indeed. Students were already starting to appear late for Kakashi's classes. Though this may have been in part to the increasing aggressiveness of the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Heck, even _Kakashi_ cut classes. "I have the money here. Twenty galleons, ten sickles, and two knuts."

Rosmerta sighed and waved her wand, bringing out a crate for Kakashi. "Very well, thank you for your business and please come again," she said with a smile. "Do visit some time and actually have a drink with us here for once," Rosmerta called to him as Kakashi left with the small crate in hand.

"Will do," Kakashi said with a vague nod as he headed towards Honeyduke's for his other pre-ordered goodies. He had sent a rented long-distance owl back to Konoha a few days ago. This was going to be a pleasant surprise for his special Christmas someone.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

That'll be all for Kakashi. For now anyway. It's a bit short, but yeah...


	30. Chapter 30

Response to **cadetfuhrer**'s review:

Well, I can see how many people would dislike the pairings, as I had chosen the extremely common and then the extremely rare pairings. However, where you say that it's not funny, I have to disagree, as you hadn't even taken the time to read even past the fifth chapter.

On the other hand, judging from that 'oh so fabulous' fiction -you- have written, I suppose I must bow down before your overpowering ego, which has even managed to surpass my own level of immodesty. And, considering what a writing guru you must be, I do hope you'll get your fat ass and add a bit more detail to turn this somewhat pathetic excuse of even a flame into constructive criticism.

I find insults to my story, my pairings, myself, and my readers to be petty yet offensive. Congratulations. It's your opinion against at -least- four hundred readers. The fact that all of them prefer my fic to whatever shit you have or will have written. An insult to my story is an insult to the tastes of whoever reads it. Are you saying that all my readers are retarded kids who like stupid pairings and have no taste in good stories?

I personally don't mind constructive criticism, but I take a serious offense to flames that have nothing but 'I'm not reading this anymore because, in short, I'm better than you'. Nah-ah-ah... Don't do that. It's incredibly rude. Hasn't your mother ever told you to shut the hell up? Because she ought to have. I pity you. I suppose at least I had parents responsible enough to teach me the important things in life. Like how to shut my mouth at appropriate times.

So, you think you can insult people who -like- my story? You think that they're idiots?

Here's the deal, I'll remove the post at the end of my soon-to-be Chapter 30 -IF- you can manage to write at least seven hundred pages of words/thirty decent sized chapters, and receive at least eight hundred positive reviews in at least one year, and be entered into at least twenty C2s, at least three hundred people put you onto their Story alerts, and at least four hundred and fifty people put you onto their favorite stories, be on the Author alert list of at least one hundred readers and on the Favorite Author's list of at least one hundred fifty. If you receive at least two invites to different fanfiction writing forums, then that's a plus.

In other words, I am challenging you to make a fanfiction almost as successful as my own. If you do, I will accept you at least as an equal.

Otherwise, go suck dick.

Love,

--Yarochisai

If you would like me to remove this response from my thirtieth chapter, you may either  
a) read to the end and give me a DETAILED flame. Basically, constructive criticism as to how I may improve my work.  
b) meet the Challenge and force me into submission to your writing  
c) IM me at Yarochisai and tell me face-to-face how I may improve my work  
d) all of the above, preferably except B.

Also, I'd like to point out that your taste in fanfiction isn't so grand either. I'd like to point out the fact that only two of them have had over five hundred reviews, something I had managed on only my twentieth chapter, and then another five hundred in the next _ten_ chapters..

I'll admit, the beginning of my story isn't so grand. Would you like it to follow the Harry Potter plot line and -slowly- deviate in a different direction, would you like it to be completely random and pointless, or would you like it to not have a plot at all?

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Chapter 30: The Yule Ball

**FLASHBACK **_(a few days ago)_

Naruto frowned in his hot cocoa. "There's a bug in my drink..." he muttered, wrinkling his nose in distaste after tossing the mug into the snow. He watched it in fascination as the wizard-biodegradable mug melted in the snow.

They were all sitting outside that morning, as usual. The winter vacation had already started. About half of the students had already left, some not invited by others to the Yule Ball, and others just not allowed to attend. Most third-years and below were gone with the few exceptions of Ginny, and a handful of other students, including some strange girl with silvery eyes almost similar to Hinata's. What was strangest about her was her tendency to seem as if she had forgotten to blink.

Neji and Tenten were doing... whatever it was that they did like when they had previously been going out. What surprised Naruto the most was the fact that it almost seemed as if Neji and Tenten had never broken up in the first place.

Shikamaru, Temari, and Ino were taking a break from their own projects as well. Whatever it was that they were doing in the library had been put off for the time being, though Shikamaru was still absently flipping through pages of text filled with magical theories on the most useless things, like '_The Theory of Magic and Muggles_', '_Newest Breakthroughs in Almost-Wizarding Technologies_', and even '_The Theoretical Methods and Techniques of Memory Charms_'.

There was even the "_Eastern Clans and the Theory of Clan Magic_", though why Shikamaru was reading _that _of all things was beyond them. After all, "Mumeishi Noh" had written that one single book on a whim. It seemed that Shino was running out of false names to throw people off. Either way, writing this single copy of the book had its desired effect.

Paranoia.

As expected, Hermione had been the first to get her hands on the book. She read about strange techniques that were allegedly 'explained in great detail' (more throwaway information), including clans like the Uchihas and their ability to increase their eyesight by increasing the two types of photoreceptor cells in their eyes. To enhance the sharingan ability to see, you would need stronger rods in the eye that detect motion or a larger number. Of course, a stronger rod is impossible, since they come only 'one of a kind', and to increase the number of rods, you would need to decrease the number of the cones that detect color. But Uchihas aren't colorblind.

So, 'Mumeishi Noh' had merely mentioned an increased number of rods. In real life, that would have resulted in an Uchiha with abnormally huge eyes, but these people didn't know that much detail about the human eye. It was best to leave the tiny detail about the damned huge eyes out.

The most difficult part of writing the book for Shino was not making up the clans or excuses as to how they could do such a thing. With 'magic', some things didn't always have to make sense. The main trick was to make it too complicated with large words for ordinary non-scholarly readers to understand completely, yet realistic enough to fool the more in-depth readers like Hermione Granger, who tended to use knowledge gathered from other sources to confirm this information.

Not only did the book tell half-truths to the wizards. It also had the champions and two-thirds of the golden trio on the verge of fighting over the book. Whether this was useful or amusing, Naruto wasn't sure which to think. And not only that, but it also brought attention to the most useless things. Like Sasuke's black eyes, even though the Uchiha's in the book were described as having red Sharingan eyes twenty four seven. Which probably sent the current golden duo on another goose chase to figure out why an Uchiha 'didn't have the Sharingan'.

Which was entirely stereotypical. Not all Uchihas had to be geniuses with the sharingan!

Anyway, most of the shinobi were sitting outside just relaxing. Shino himself had walked all the way to Hogsmeade again, accompanied by Fred and George, who probably didn't understand just how far the village was on foot. They all stared at the beetle as it writhed on its back in the melting snow.

Kankurou quickly lost interest. "Speaking of bugs, look who wrote the newest article," he said, folding open the most recent Witch Weekly article.

"Well, when you word it like that, you could either mean Skeeter or Shino," Naruto said idly, kicking snow over the flailing bug. And who says he wasn't a sadist?

"I was talking about our We-know-who," Kankurou said, rolling his eyes. "How is Skeeter a bug?"

"She's really annoying," Naruto said. "Duh. Like a mosquito that just won't go away."

The puppeteer shook his head. "Anyway, yeah, it's Shino. Kinda funny...I don't think this was a fair vote..."

"_What_?"

"The topic." Kankurou showed it to the rest of the group

_**Yule Ball Celebrities—"Who would you like to go with the most?"**_

**Durmstrang**—founded by Peter Maximoff in the late 1700s for purebloods with only one house  
Witch: Isadora Walkiria  
Wizard: Viktor Krum

**Beauxbatons**—founded by Gautier and Ghislaine Douaye for magical beings of mixed blood/cultures, splitting the houses between genders  
Witch: Fleur Delacour  
Wizard: Amédée de Rousseau

**Hogwarts**—founded by Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Salazar Slytherin, whose houses are separated by the different character traits  
Witches (per house):  
Hinata Hyuga  
Sakura Haruno  
Hannah Abbot  
Temari Sabaku  
Wizards (per house)  
Naruto Uzumaki and Harry Potter (tied)  
Neji Hyuga  
Cedric Diggory  
Shino Aburame

Everyone fell over when they read the last line.

"He _does_ have a nice face when you see it," Hinata said, "but...but..."

"...But this is going too far," Kiba agreed.

"He _does_ make a potential bishounen," Sasuke said thoughtfully, being an expert on such things. "But I have to say that this is very... unexpected. He could live up to his potential if he would get rid of that jacket of his."

Kiba rolled his eyes. "Pssh, as if that's gonna happen. The jackets that his father gives him are like his treasures. _Gods_, even. I wouldn't be surprised if he wore that thing at the Yule Ball."

Sasuke paused, glaring at the representative for Slytherin. "...How the heck did _Shino _of all people get in there anyway?"

"How do you think? He wrote the article, genius," Kankurou snorted. He didn't really care whether he was on the list or not, but the fact that it had been neither of the two most popular guys in Slytherin was shocking. Not to mention pretty damn hilarious.

"Well, both Sasuke and Malfoy sent so many threats to the Daily Prophet towards him that he chose neither just to spite them," Gaara said to Sakura. He paused, almost thoughtfully. "Which must be why he ran off to Hogsmeade the day this thing came out..."

"Hey..." Temari said to Sakura. "_You're_ here. Where's Tenten? And Neji, for that matter?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "I'm giving the two lovebirds over at the Ravenclaw table some room over there. In fact, a whole bunch of other Ravenclaws have migrated over to Hufflepuff and Gryffindor as well. That's why there are more people outside than usual. Oh, and apparently, when Tenten and Neji got together, there was later a written agreement as to how much attention Neji would give her."

"Smart girl," Temari said, nodding appreciatively. "You've got to keep a tight hold on your man or else he'll fall down somewhere and won't let anyone pick him up. Right, Shikamaru?"

"Hn...how trouble—"

WHACK!

"Am not!"

"You know," Kankurou said casually as he ate his breakfast. "I don't think I really mind the fact that Temari is going out with Shikamaru anymore."

"And even if you did mind us dating, it doesn't matter because I'm bound to completely ignore you anyway," his sister said, dusting her hands.

Someone shrieked. "..._WHAAA_?"

What the hell was that?

Everyone turned around to find Ino staring at the newspaper in horror.

"What is it?" Sasuke asked her.

"HOW COME HINATA'S ON THE LIST AND I'M NOT?"

They all sweatdropped. No one had the heart (or rather, the courage) to tell Ino to her face that she just wasn't as cute and shy as Hinata.

* * *

"This is horrible!" Ino cried to Kiba, later that day after she had recovered from her original shock at having been beaten on The List..

"I know!" Kiba said. "I haven't gotten my pay yet! Why haven't you paid me?"

"Not that, mutt!" she said, smacking his head. "Naruto and Hinata! They're not hooking up!"

"That's the problem when it comes to putting together an idiot and a conservative girl. Now, if she was boy-crazy as you in an outward way, _then_ your problems would be solved," he said, following Ino around the corner as the two shinobi watched Hinata as discreetly as possible. There was no real use, hiding from a Hyuga at close range, but so long as she didn't notice them following her, all was fine for now.

Ino ignored Kiba's comment. "Think you can keep her from paying attention to me?" she asked him.

"Oooh yeah," he said with a grin, nodding to Ino and walking over to Hinata. "Hey Hinata-chan, look over there!"

Idiot!

Luckily, Hinata just stared at him. "Kiba, what are you up to?" she asked him, feeling his forehead underneath the hitai-ate. Did Kiba forget, for some reason, that she saw almost everything? "Are you sic—kyaa...?" He suddenly jumped on and huggled her with a huge fanged grin on his face.

Now! Shintenshin no Jutsu! Kiba, still cuddling Hinata, whispered something in her ear. Whatever he said, she turned beet-red and covered her face. However, after a few moments, Hinata regained her composure, though she was much more... casual than she was before she turned red. Placing her hand on her hips, Hinata frowned.

"Just what did you tell her anyway?" she asked Kiba, who grinned in response.

"I told her that a really bishie blond was coming for her," he said. "And it's true, in more ways than she realizes."

Ino sighed inside. That was _nothing_! Ah, to be a shy girl... Some guys just loved that.

"So," Kiba said casually. "What now?"

"I just gotta ask Naruto out," she said simply. 'Hinata' pointed at Ino's body. "Pick me up," she said imperiously.

"No."

Hinata/Ino glared at him. "Now."

"I'm not your boyfriend anymore," he said. "I'm no a whipped dog, woman!"

"I'll tell everyone you wear puppy boxers—" Kiba clamped Ino/Hinata's mouth shut with his hand.

"It's Scooby-Doo! And I'll have you know that he's popular with the Muggles!" he hissed. "And—wait, how did you know?"

Ino/Hinata pointed at her eyes, her brows raised cockily.

"...Damn Hyugas...and Hyuga possessors... Jeez, Neji must be the luckiest guy in the world then," he muttered with an afterthought. He jogged over to Ino's body and hefted her up.

'Gently!' Ino would have yelled to Kiba, but someone stood in her way. She knew that cocky smile anywhere. Only one boy in the entire school had hair that matched her owns and eyes that rivaled hers in beauty. Draco Malfoy...

What did he want now? He had both of his 'bodyguards' by his side as usual.

"Hey, Hyuga," he said, looking left and right warily, as if to make sure that most students passing by weren't paying too much attention to them. "You got a date to the Yule Ball?"

Ino (in Hinata's body) froze, staring at him. If the Hyuga's eyes weren't always so wide open, they would have widened some more. DRACO MALFOY was asking HINATA out?-!

Holy god.

This was _so_ wrong.

First, Hinata had beaten her in the poll for the top Gryffindor girl, but this was NOT right! '_I am sooo much prettier than Hinata! I'm the type of blond with the hair so light, I might as well even have my very own fairytale! And sure, Hinata's eyes might be a pearly white color, but I have sea green eyes. SEA GREEN! How many girls have THAT? She should be glad I'm even setting her up with Naruto! And how could Malfoy ask her out? I'm prettier! I'm not single, but I AM prettier!_'

Ino needed an escape. Kiba, who was standing nearby, was laughing so hard, Ino was almost afraid he'd drop her body. Scowling, Ino/Hinata glared at him.

"Oooh, I hate you all!" she declared, pointing an accusing finger at Malfoy and then Kiba. "And stop laughing, mutt!"

Ino/Hinata smacked Malfoy out of the way. Of course, with Hinata's short period of training with Tsunade, this was by no means a harmless deed. Malfoy slammed into the wall with her borrowed strength. And began to quickly walk away with Kiba, hoping that half the people staring at them in the hallway had somehow not seen that.

"In, er... Hinata, that was completely out of character," Kiba snickered.

"Whatever! My god, this is so unfair! When we were going out, no one ever asked me out!" she snarled. Someone coughed in surprise. Hinata and the infamous mutt? Little did they know who Kiba was really walking with.

"That's because we were going out..." Kiba said, shrugging. Ino/Hinata stopped walking and Kiba waited for her, slightly confused as to what made her stop.

"Whatever," Ino/Hinata said, still looking rather annoyed. "Just stop. I'm not asking Naruto out anymore. I'll leave that up to them."

"Now that's almost unfair," Kiba said as Ino released Hinata and returned to her own body. He was rather surprised. Ino _not_ meddling? This was unheard of!

"Whatever!" Ino said, now in her own body being hefted on Kiba's shoulder. "Now put me dow—"

"Ano...Kiba? Ino? What are you two doing?" Hinata asked them.

"Ah, nothing!" Kiba said, dropping the blond girl onto the floor.

"Argh! Bastard!" Ino kicked his legs out from under him.

"Arf!" he yelped when his back hit the floor.

"..." Ino couldn't help but snicker at his bark. He really was a dog.

**END OF FLASHBACK** _(present now)_

"You and Hinata!" Naruto exclaimed at Kiba.

"_Eh_?"

"_You_. And _Hinata._"

Ooh, Naruto looked livid. Good for Hinata. Bad for Kiba.

Kiba paused for a second and suddenly realized what Naruto was talking about.

"How did you know?"

"I just asked Sakura!" Naruto said, pointing an accusatory finger at the Inuzuka. "You and Hinata!"

"It... it was a long time ago!" Kiba said.

"This summer is not a long time ago! Our first chuunin exam! _That _was a long time ago! Academy school is a long time ago! _A long time ago_ is a long time ago!"

"Okay, now you're not making sense," Kiba said. "Anyway, we aren't together anymore, and that's what counts if you like her, right?"

"Who broke up with who?" Naruto said.

"...Anyway, we aren't together anymore, and that's what counts if you like her, right?" Kiba repeated anxiously.

"..._You dumped her_!"

"It's the other way around, you moron!" Kiba said before Naruto could jump him. "You came back and she went back to _you_! She likes _you_, she's obsessed about _you_, and she only wants _you_!"

Crap, said to much...

"Huh?"

Nevermind. Thank god Naruto's an idiot.

"She dumped _you _for _me_?"

Damn, he's _not _retarded.

"That depends," Kiba said.

"On what?"

"On whether you're going to go to the Yule Ball with her or not," he said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"She hasn't been asked?" Naruto asked incredulously.

"Turned every invitation down for you," Kiba said smugly, feeling rather proud of Hinata's own growing stubborn streak. He knew what Naruto was going to do next. "Better ask fast though... You don't know how long she'll last against the throngs of suitors, eh?"

Naruto's eyes widened and he turned around, about to leave the Gryffindor common room to head for... for wherever Hinata was.

"Wait!" Kiba said before the blond could leave. "How did you know about us anyway? You didn't just ask Sakura out of the blue without any confirmation, would you?"

"I... I heard you guys in the hallway when you were hefting Ino around," Naruto said. "I was going to ask Hinata to go then but... ah..."

"...Naruto, wait, that...that was Ino in Hinata's body. Don't ask. It's a long story."

"Wait... YOU AND INO TOO?"

"..." Kiba had meant not to ask why Ino was in Hinata's body, but this raised a whole new issue.

"Wrong story then, but yeah," the Inuzuka said with a scowl. Naruto stared at him. "Don't look at me like that. I'm a dog. I go after anything on legs."

"..." Naruto backed up slightly.

"Correction: _any sweet smelling human_ on legs," he amended. "Which does not include guys or animals, just so you know."

"Did she dump you too?"

Kiba scowled. That damn Uchiha. "It was mutual anyway. We both hated each other and then Sasuke came back, so I finally got away from her," he said, glaring.

"Right," Naruto said, nodding. "So... so you don't like Hinata, right?"

Kiba scratched his head. When did he ever say _that_? Nevertheless, he shrugged. "She doesn't like me like that. Besides, she's almost like a sister to me, so it'd be too _weird_," he said, shaking his head.

"You said so yourself! You're a dog, so I can't trust you!" Naruto declared, suddenly. 'What happened to being man's best friend?' Kiba wondered. "Swear to the dog guardian spirit of the Inuzuka clan!" Naruto said.

"The what?"

"It's pretty self-explanatory! The dog guardian spirit of the Inuzuka clan! You swore to it when we drew the gift slips that you didn't rig the box!"

Kiba winced. Naruto had a better memory than he had expected. Heck, even _he_ didn't remember that.

"Er..."

"...YOU _DID_ RIG IT!" Naruto said, looking angry.

"Ino made me! She's the mastermind behind all of this!" he said. "Blame her!"

"Ino?" Why would Ino do all of this anyway? What purpose would it serve? Wait a minute...

She had an obsession when it came to love and couples. That was it! She was obsessed with getting people together!

An odd hobby, but a nice one.

"I suppose she's going to expect me to give her something in return," the blond mused, quite un-Naruto like.

"...You're going to GIVE her something?"

"Why not?"

"You looked like you were going to kill me before! Naruto-style™!"

"Well you're _Kiba_."

"...What's that supposed to mean?"

"Besides, you said so yourself: Ino is the 'mastermind' behind all of this. And you're you. So that means Ino's been planning everything and you only got involved since she's paying you, right? Which means it's not as if _you're_ coming out of this empty-handed."

"...Since when have _you_ been so smart?"

"I've been my own kind of genius all my life," Naruto said smugly. Kiba snorted at that. Says the kid who _still_ couldn't do an ordinary bunshin.

"Shouldn't you get going now?" he said, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, right!" Naruto said, running out of the room. Kiba smirked. He might have given away more information than he had preferred to, but he'd finally helped Naruto and Hinata get together. Naruto should be _thanking _him for helping out.

Kiba sighed, remembering what it was like when he had gone out of Hinata. Heck, the most unforgettable part was asking her _out_. It had taken a huge beating, lots of begging, and his sister to convince Neji to let them go out—

Wait a minute...

Shit, Kiba forgot to warn Naruto about Neji.

* * *

"I... I think—"

"Don't," Neji cut her off.

"..." -

"I didn't mean that literally," he said. "Just don't worry about things. It's easier not to think about it."

The two cousins were sitting outside by the lake, where others couldn't hear their conversation. Ordinarily, they'd be extra careful not to let others see them talking almost like they were close companions (A/N: ...), but considering that they were probably the only Hyugas in this world, they didn't have to worry about being seen as a Branch and a Main family spending too much... family time together. Hiashi didn't seem to mind the two families mingling with one another, but it was still rare to see a Branch member and a Main member leisurely spending time in each other's presence without physically, verbally, or visually attacking each other.

((A/N: Just out of curiosity, do the two families still hate each other and stuff?))

The older cousin sighed. "You shouldn't have waited for Naruto. You know how long it could take for him to get a clue," he said, frowning at her.

"W...what sh-should I do?" Hinata asked him.

"Just ask a guy out. You look good enough to convince anyone to drop a date for you. It was in the newspaper." Plus, if someone turned her down, Neji would be after his ass like a shark going after a fat guy in a tube. He would kick the bastard's ass like he was going to do with Nar—

Well speak of the devil, here he comes now.

"HINATA...!" Naruto cried, jumping out of bushes and laying face down on the ground for a second as his breath caught up with him.

"..." The two Hyugas stared at him for a while—both with different reactions to Naruto's arrival.

"Please go to the Yule Ball with me! I was gonna ask you earlier but then Kiba and you were and then I got confused and thought together and—"

"Uzumaki..." Neji said threateningly.

"Mm...mmmm..." Hinata covered her face, almost unable to say anything at all. 'If you can't say it, just... just shout it out...' Neji said before...

"_YEEEEES_!" she practically shrieked, knocking the two boys over.

She re-covered her face with her hands, turned red, and fell over as well.

"..." Neji got up to his feet and dragged Naruto away by the back of his shirt. "Come with me."

"Do I have a choice?" Naruto said, starting to panic.

"No."

Once they were out of earshot, Neji glared down at Naruto and found himself dismayed that his height meant little, as Naruto had grown taller, after all. Looking almost eye-to-eye, Neji gave Naruto his best, most practiced death-glare, reserved only for the extremely offensive.

"You waited _this long_?" he said angrily.

"Uh... It's better than not at all, right?"

"Whatever. But the point is that you asked the wrong person," Neji said sternly.

"Huh?"

"You were supposed to ask _me_!"

"_...Huh_?"

Uh oh, Neji had his 'teaching correct protocol' look on his face again. "It's tradition to ask the father permission to court his daughter. As Hiashi is more than likely to say no and the fact that we are not even in the same region of the world, the responsibility of judging the suitor would rest on Hanabi or myself. Hanabi is too young, she'd probably refuse just to spite the both of you, _and _she's also back home, so the duty is transferred completely to me to judge whether you are worthy enough for the Hyuga heiress—"

"Wasn't she disowned?" Naruto wondered.

"Don't interrupt," Neji said, smacking Naruto upside the head. "It is improper to ask Hinata outright. Manners dictate that you ask the guardian. It should have been _me_."

Naruto's eyes widened. "So that's why you never let me anywhere _near _her? Because I'm supposed to go to _you first_?-!"

"Yes!"

"...That's ridiculous!"

Neji glared at him.

"Well, it's not you I wanna date. Anyway, it's not as if I'm going to _marry _her," he said.

"..." Neji stared at Naruto for a moment.

"YOU PLAN ON COURTING HER WITHOUT MARRIAGE?"

"Wait, I mean, I like... I guess, she's not that bad—"

"NOT BAD? HINATA IS THE HEIRESS OF THE HYUGA CLAN AND IS THE FIRST IN GENERATIONS TO FORM A COMPLETELY NEW FIGHTING STRATEGY DIFFERENT FROM THE JYUUKEN AND—"

"Wait, wait, wait, that's not what I meant! I meant she's really nice and I guess she is marry-able..."

"WHAT? YOU WANT TO MARRY MY COUSIN?-!"

"..." Naruto stared back at the seething Neji for a moment. "HEEEY! NOBODY—AND I MEAN _NOBODY_—SCREWS WITH MY HEAD! DO YOU WANT ME TO NOT WANT TO MARRY HER OR DO YOU WANT ME TO WANT TO MARRY HER?"

Neji paused.

"...That's not the point!" he said, changing the topic. "Uh... you were aware that I was keeping you away so that you could ask me for her first, which meant that you knew how she felt about you and you made her wait too long!"

"No, I didn't know," the blond said. "Kiba just told me about her and it clicked together."

"Oh."

And before Neji could react, Naruto grinned, shouted a quick 'Thanks!' and ran off.

"Hey! You haven't asked me for permission yet, you crude asshole!" Neji shouted, running after Naruto, who completely ignored him and continued to run.

"Hinaaata!" Naruto said to Hinata. He glomped her. "He said yeees! So I'm asking again! Do you wanna go with me?"

"Y-y-y-yes!" she said, her eyes wide and looking as if she was going to faint again, even though this was the second time in less than five minutes that he had asked her to the Yule Ball.

"Hey, I didn't say yes!" Neji said.

"N-Neji, you will really say no...?" Hinata asked him, turning on her cutest, most adorable chibi-puppy eyes. Despite his nearly unstoppable defense, Neji had developed no kind of offense against this kind of onslaught. He was being slaughtered. Hinata-style™.

"O-of course not!" Neji said hastily. After all, he had just been talking about how Naruto should hurry up and ask her out just minutes before Naruto had arrived.

"S-so then you said yes!" she said excitedly.

"No! Wait, what...?" Neji paused for a moment to think as Naruto made his escape, laughing as he pulled Hinata along by the wrist. "_Dammit, Uzumaki, stop backing me into a corner, come back here, and PROPERLY ask my permission!_" Neji shouted, stomping after them in the snow.

* * *

It was nearly impossible to them to sleep that night on Christmas Eve. Naruto and the other shinobi in Gryffindor decided to "camp out" in the Common room so that when Santa Flooed out of the fireplace, they could get him all at the same time. If it was the real Santa of legends, they concluded that the so-called "jolly old man" would be able to fend them off without breaking a sweat, using some sort of huge, insanely powerful technique.

Vikki was idly chewing on Naruto's boots, and Akamaru on Kiba's leftover bones from the kitchen.

In the meantime, Ino was still working on the Yule Ball robes. They no longer looked like ordinary kimonos, with the touch of westernized and wizarding adaptations. She also added a few touch-ups for the weather and added a few charms on hair decorations and bracelets just in case, since the kimono—made in the desert—were originally yukata meant for less casual and warmer wear.

She was talking to Hinata (in a rather one-sided conversation) about how excited she was about the Yule Ball, and that she had even been cheerful enough to lend Hermione an entire bottle of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion (which Ino had, of course, altered 'a bit'). Occasionally, Ino would forcefully drag Hinata into the bathroom to test whether certain new adaptations she made to the outfits suited her needs.

And each time, Naruto and Kiba would attempt to peek in through the cracks in the door, only to have their eyes poked and have Ino screaming at them about their perverted tendencies.

Ino sighed.. Boys will be boys, but she'll only allow that if the boy being a boy was Sasuke.

"Oh, it looks adorable!" they heard Ino gushing. "You're almost as cute as me!"

Kiba and Naruto sweatdropped at this.

"A-ah, thank you..." Hinata said. "I-I think..."

"Honestly, when Naruto sees you tomorrow, he'll die of the shock," Ino said.

"Let me in!" Naruto whined, with curiosity practically tearing him apart from the inside. "I wanna see! Let me die, I don't mind!" He pressed his head on the floor, trying to look under the cracks.

"Hm..." they heard Ino mutter. "I'm going to open the door in five seconds, and if I see _Naruto or Kiba _skulking around outside the door _one more time_, I'm going to beat them within an inch of their lives!"

Naruto jumped onto the couch with Kiba frantically as Ino swung open the door. She and Hinata were, once again, clad in their sleeping clothes.

"You guys are perverts," Ino muttered, though she made no move to slaughter them. She grinned. "I just thought I'd let you guys have a look at the material. Yoshiko-sama's silks are, as usual, top of the line. I just love her fabrics!" she gushed.

Kiba snorted, though Naruto stared at the fabric in amazement. "It...it's _moving_," he said, surprised.

Ino grinned proudly. "Anko showed me how to mess with the clothes earlier."

* * *

"_Sevi, Sevi, Sevi, look! It _mooooves_!" _

_Severus Snape stared at his assistant. _

"_So?" she said eagerly._

"_So what?"_

"_So what do you think?" she said indignantly. _

"_It's... unique," he said, too tired to even lift his head up off the pillow. That gods-cursed woman..._

"_You didn't even look at it!" she whined. May she be cursed for all eternity. _

_And burn in hell._

_'For Merlin's sake! It was in the middle of the night!' he thought. He pulled his wand from his nightstand and Anko was immediately struck by a pillow-cannonball, which also succeeded in muffling her protests ('I'm not tiiired!'). _

_He sighed, turning over. Time was, he would have cursed her through the door. Beating her senseless with a pillow? He was being much to soft with her._

* * *

"I just love magic!" Ino continued.

Kiba snorted.

"_What_?" she said, looking annoyed.

"It's not _that_ impressive," he teased.

She gasped indignantly. "Well then," she said in a haught voice. "I suppose that if you _both_ feel that way, I won't show you the pictures of Hinata in her dress—"

"You're kidding me!" Naruto said, over Hinata's nervous stutters. "How'd'ya develop them so fast?"

"I used my Polaroid Device!" she said, lifting the Muggle-brand, Wizard-modified camera in the air. Sunshines and rays illuminated behind her. Despite the fact that it was nearly midnight. "Plus, I have a few photos of the beginning designs!"

Even Kiba perked up slightly at this, though he refused to admit anything for Hinata.

"Well then," he said, leaning back and stretching his arms behind his head as he yawned, revealing his canines. "I suppose I should be glad that it doesn't really matter since Hinata and I aren't going out, eh?"

"Kiba you asshole!" Naruto whined. "_I_ want to see it! Shut up!"

He snorted, butu any signs of humor was quickly drained from his face when Ino flashed a demonic smile of her own. The grin of a she-devil.

"Well guess what?" she said to him. "I have pictures of... a You-Know-Who."

Kiba's eyes widened. "_My_ You-Know-Who? As in the one who cannot be named until the Yule Ball?" he said in shock.

She nodded. "In a bit less than her Yule Ball robes," she said with a grin. "I had to take a picture, measurements and all, you know..."

Kiba threw himself at her feet. "I absolutely _love_ your robes! If I were a girl, I'd steal and wear them myself!" he babbled loudly. "PLEASE let me see it!"

She stuck her tongue out at him. "No—" she said smugly when all four Gryffindor shinobi suddenly felt their eyelids grow heavy. Without a moment to react, they each conked forward and passed out where they stood.

* * *

"Who do you think he's killing?" Kankurou whispered to his sister.

"I don't know," Temari whispered in response. "But I hope it's that Hufflepuff kid."

"Cedric?" Sasuke said. "He's an okay guy. Why do you want him dead?"

"Nah, not him. There's some other guy in Hufflepuff. Ernie, or something. He's got a huge head."

"Killing him out of sheer ugliness..." Sasuke said thoughtfully. "How kind. Put him down before he breeds more with heads his size?"

"I meant it figuratively," she said. "Who do you think died?"

"..." Shino said.

"_Who_?" the three of them asked Shino.

"" he said, in a louder voice.

"Speak up!" Sasuke urged.

"...!" Shino said in a voice so loud that the silence knocked them over.

"Call me crazy..." Kankurou muttered, shaking out his ringing ears. "...but I still didn't get that."

Shino glared at them all through his sunglasses, though he must have been completely blind, looking through black lenses in the darkness of the Slytherin common room, which was illuminated by the low fire.

The person in question, of course, was Gaara himself. He showed the classic signs of his third eye—one eye that was held shut—and the telltale signs of something to be suspicious off—a missing gourd of sand and an sense of incoming doom. Doom for who, however, was a complete mystery.

Kankurou took out his communication parchment and scribbled on it.

_ICanCrow: HEY NARUTO. KIBA. INO. HINATA. YOU GUYS ALIVE?_

There was no response.

"Crap, maybe he's finally snapped and killed everyone in the Gryffindor tower..." he said to the others.

Sasuke shook his head. "If Gaara ever decided to kill Naruto, I assure you that we'd probably hearing him say 'what the fuck', all over the entire school. Gaara may be your kazekage, but no one can ever shut up a guy like Naruto. They're trying to catch Santa."

"_Santa_," Temari and Kankurou said in unison.

"I know, I know, Santa doesn't exist," Sasuke muttered. "They're the only ones in the entire school who probably would ever think of camping out in the common room ready to jump him. The fools. Anyway, odds are that they've just left their things in their rooms. Try Ravenclaw."

_ICanCrow: HEY NEJI, YOU STILL ALIVE? ME AND SASUKE AND TEMARI AND SHINO ARE FREAKING OUT HERE. CHECK OUT THE ROOM FOR SUSPICIOUS SAND, WILL YOU?_

They waited for a response and got one moments later.

_ICU: I'm busy._

Kankurou raised an eyebrow.

_ICanCrow: It's almost midnight. What would you be busy doing at a time like this? Oooh, I bet Tenten's over there right now! Not so gentlemanly right now, _are_ you, Hyuga?  
__ICU__: Another word and you won't be waking up tonight. Is it me or is Gaara not the only one who does not sleep? Yes, I am aware Gaara is doing something, but it is none of your business, and it is none of my business so bug off and let me sleep. No offense, Shino.  
__Kikaichu: None taken.  
ICanCrow: Hey, you're talking. Now why don't you tell us who you think died?  
Kikaichu: ...Neji's right. Not your business. Good night._

They all looked up to where Shino had previously been standing. Now, the spot next to them was completely Shino-free.

"Hey, where'd he go?" Kankurou said, looking around.

That sly bug.

"Still, I wonder what he's up too," Temari said, peeking out of the door to find that Gaara was gone. Uh oh...

"What _who's_ up to?" someone said from behind them.

Almost everyone jumped, finding Gaara standing with his arms crossed.

"G-G-Gaara!" his sister stuttered, clutching her chest.

"You guys were staring at me again. You know I don't like that," he said, his voice completely devoid of all emotion.

"We were worried," Kankurou said. "We didn't want to get blamed for any dead people, you know?"

"Dead people...?" he said, raising a nonexistent eyebrow. He was just making a show of it. He knew that they thought he was doing what he was famous for doing. "...You thought I killed somebody again," he said blankly.

"Er... yeah."

He paused, almost thoughtfully. "...Is there someone you _want_ dead?"

"_No_," everyone said immediately.

"Definitely not," Temari said with a nervous laugh. "So what were you doing?"

The not-completely-friendly-but-at-least-somewhat-casual mood that Gaara was in almost instantly vanished into a more guarded and even less friendly attitude. "Not your business," he said bluntly.

"..." No one really said anything. What was there to say in response to an answer like that, anyway?

Gaara returned to the common room and the others resumed to warily watching what he did. "You know what that means, don't you?" Sasuke asked with a smirk on his face.

"What?" Kankurou said.

"...You really don't know?" the Uchiha said incredulously, feeling as if he enjoyed himself.

"I wouldn't be asking if I knew," he growled threateningly. Of course, it wasn't as if Kankurou wasn't aware of the huge gap between each other. After all, he was a rival of Naruto who was on par with Deidara who was almost equal to Sasori who both were stronger than Gaara who could destroy the entire village, him included. Now that Kankurou thought about it, he was pretty low on the totem pole.

Though at least he was jounin. That put him above a fair amount of people.

"So what's this all about?" Temari asked.

"I'm not sure what it is _exactly_," Sasuke said, "but now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that it's about...about...uh...what the heck?"

Sasuke's eyes widened as he stared out the window with a look of sheer disbelief. The others turned around to see...

"What the hell is _tha—_?" Kankurou tried to say, until they all passed out.

* * *

Neji had been meditating behind his bed curtains, peacefully clearing his mind of all thoughts and forcing down the excitement that he faced every day at Hogwarts and the thought of the Yule Ball itself. It was almost completely peaceful in the Ravenclaw dorm.

Neji took a deep breath, let it out, and fell out of his bed when his back pocket suddenly started vibrating. That felt weird. ((A/N: That happened to me in class once. Someone called my cellphone and I fell out of my chair and freaked out, and everyone (including the teacher) stared at me like I was crazy.))

He irritably pulled the parchment out of his pocket, nearly vowing to burn the damned thing. Shikamaru didn't bother making any other kind of alert aside from the vibrating one. Lazy bastard.

'What!' he nearly barked out to it, but he caught himself. He'd look crazy if he actually did that anyway. But he definitely wanted to curse the oblivion out of whoever had the gall to disturb his personal time.

_ICanCrow: HEY NEJI, YOU STILL ALIVE? ME AND SASUKE AND TEMARI AND SHINO ARE FREAKING OUT HERE. CHECK OUT THE ROOM FOR SUSPICIOUS SAND, WILL YOU?_

Ah, the Sabaku idiot. He should've known. It would always be either him, Kiba, or Naruto. Neji forced down the sudden temptation to tear the parchment to pieces and took out a quill and ink bottle, scribbling down a terse response.

_ICU: I'm busy._

He knew better to toss it aside. With the anti-theft spell, some unknown spell that automatically sent it back to the owner, and his luck, the three would probably combine to fly in his face and knock him down or something. Someone nearby in the room rolled over.

_ICanCrow: It's almost midnight. What would you be busy doing at a time like this? Oooh, I bet Tenten's over there right now! Not so gentlemanly right now, _are_ you, Hyuga?_

Neji glared at the parchment. If looks could kill, well... well it wouldn't matter because he didn't really have any eye contact, and therefore Kankurou would not die.

_ICU: Another word and you won't be waking up tonight. Is it me or is Gaara not the only one who does not sleep? Yes, I am aware Gaara is doing something, but it is none of your business, and it is none of my business so bug off and let me sleep. _

Neji paused, noticing Shino's pen name in the corner as well as the Neji's and Kankurou's. _No offense, Shino,_ he added for good measure.

_Kikaichu: None taken.  
ICanCrow: Hey, you're talking. Now why don't you tell us who you think died?  
Kikaichu: ...Neji's right. Not your business. Good night._

Neji almost groaned out loud. What was the point of interrupting his quiet time him if they were going to ask him only one lousy question?

He laid on his back in his bed, closing his eyes.

"What was that about?" a voice next to him asked.

Neji didn't even turn his head. "Something about Gaara," he mumbled. "They think he's gone berserk. Again."

"That's the third time this week," she said, snuggling up close to him, her head on his chest.

"Yeah..." Neji frowned.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

There was a fat man outside breaking into Hogwarts with a huge bag of loot and a horde of deer.

"...No, I'm just..." Dreaming? Hallucinating? Slowly losing his sanity to a misplaced Memory Charm? "...Nothing's wrong."

"M'kay..."

Tenten yawned and they both went to sleep.

* * *

Naruto woke up eagerly on Christmas day to the sounds of not so joyous shrieking.

He and the others—who had fallen asleep in the common room—immediately jumped up to their feet and ran towards the source of the shouting: the boys' dorm.

Instead of finding their second to worst fear (a maimed Potter, equivalent to a ruined mission, and their first fear is being caught naked in a snowy Hogsmeade), they found Harry standing with a psychotic screaming house-elf who was banging his head against the wall.

Naruto scratched his head as Vikki helped the house-elf maim itself.

"Dobby is sorry, sir!" the thing said, possibly talking in third person. "Dobby is only wanting to wish Harry Potter 'Merry Christmas' and bring him a present, sir! Harry Potter did say Dobby could come and see him sometimes, sir!"

"It's okay," Harry said, taking several deep breaths as his heart rate returned to normal. "Just...just prod me or something in the future. Don't hang over me like that..."

"Was was it attacking you?" Seamus asked him, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Nah," Harry said. "Just Dobby. Sorry, you can go back to sleep."

"No way," the Irish boy said. "We've got presents!"

Naruto's eyes widened. Crap, he forgot about Santa.

He ran out of the room and to the Christmas tree in the common room, where Kiba suddenly ran into him and, instead of a muttered apology, Kiba grabbed his shirt and pulled him to the side of the room.

"_Santa isn't real_!" the Inuzuka hissed.

"_What_?"

"You heard me. I just asked Dean about it. It was a fairy tale. A joke they play on kids about a wizard who lived centuries ago."

"What the hell is wrong with these people!"

"It's just a tale for little kids. Santa's not really real, but... it's like that story with Kintaro and his strength," Kiba said, trying to explain.

"WHAT? KINTARO'S NOT REAL?-!" ((A/N: Kintaro isn't anything really important. It's just an old children's story about some boy with super strength or something like that.))

"Dobby must go now...!" the house elf said, starting to run out of the common room. "We is already making Christmas dinner in the kitchen and Master Hot Soup is very busy and is needing help! Good-bye Harry Potter sir and all friends that Dobby does not know...!"

Rather annoyed, Naruto was about to stomp indignantly back to the common room when he bumped into Hinata.

"H-h-hello, N-Naruto," she said.

"...Hi." Naruto stared at her, wide-eyed and just... just staring. There was nothing so unusual about the sight. Hinata was still dressed in her white pajamas, a drastic contrast to Naruto's blinding orange. But it was the thoughts in his head that drove him crazy.

Hinata.

Date.

Yule Ball.

Dance.

It wasn't that he hadn't understood the concept of asking a girl out to the ball. But it was the fact that the Yule Ball was in twelve hours that had him shocked beyond words.

"..." -

"..." -

"..." -

"Sorry to interrupt the romantic moment," Kiba said sarcastically, "but here." He tossed Naruto a box that he nearly dropped, had it not been for a conditioned reflex. ((NINJA SKILLS! W00T!))

"What is it?" Naruto asked, inspecting the box like it was a bomb just waiting to go off.

"It's a box," the Inuzuka said. "Open it, idiot."

Overlooking the 'idiot' part, Naruto opened it.

"A _radio_? That won't work here."

"It's a _wizarding_ radio," Kiba said. "You play music on it. It also has better reception than we ever managed to get. I think has a reach of over fifty kilometers."

Naruto whistled. "How much did this cost?"

"A lot. So you're going to let me use it too," Kiba answered easily. Naruto rummaged around the presents at the trees and tossed Kiba a bag. Or, at least, he tossed is as much as he could. It was too heavy to go flying in the air so, instead, it slid across the carpet.

"Quantity over quality," Naruto said. "We all chipped in. Years worth of candy. You should be thanking us."

Kiba opened the sack and grinned. "Chewy kibble bits! Awesome! Oooh, the steak-flavored bubble gum! Akamaru loves these...!"

"...Anyway," Naruto said to Hinata, looking at his feet. "I uh... got you some stuff. I had to hide it though, you know. You being a Hyuga and all... Byakugan... Took me a while to figure it out..."

He walked into the room and began going through his shelf until he found a leather bound album with gold-trims on the edges.

"Sorry, the album was more expensive than the stuff inside," Naruto said, watching warily as Hinata flipped through the pages of flowers.

"H-how long did this take you?" she asked him.

"A...a few weeks," he said. "And a couple dozens of kage bunshins... They kicked me out of Slytherin after that incident. I'm on probation, I think." He grinned weakly at her. Turning red, she smiled back.

"Th-thank you—" she said, though he quickly didn't let her finish.

"Wait, um, well, I also got you a, ah... a thing," he said, pulling up the rug and patting the marble ground experimentally.

"Y-you didn't have to," she stuttered but he grinned at her. Her heart nearly melted just then.

"Nah, the book just didn't seem to cut it," Naruto said. "You'd think a guy dating a _Hyuga_ of all people would have given you something bigger than just an album book with flowers and stuff, you know?" He laughed nervously, pulling out a box. "Took me forever to get the money for this and even longer to figure out how to hide it from you..."

"N-Naruto, you d-don't have to do things like that..."

"No way, a princess should be treated like a princess," Naruto said, handing the box to her with a slight bow.

"...Neji's been threatening you again, hasn't he...?" she said quietly. Inner Hinata wanted nothing more than to throttle her cousin.

"Only a bit," Naruto admitted with a grin. "But it's not that bad. Think of it as a compliment. Neji likes you enough to be worried about you. Now open it."

She hesitated. "C'mon, Hinata, I got it just for you..." he said with a slight pout.

Turning an even deeper shade of red, Hinata unwrapped the box and opened it.

"So..." Naruto said, looking at her. "Do you like it?"

"..." She stared at it, her eyes widening in surprise.

"So, do you like it? I actually got it at a bit of a discount..." he said proudly. "Because I was the one who got the supplies... It also has a multi-use thing. There's some spell on the tag. It can be a cloak, a scarf, a coat, or a blanket. Though it's rather wasted as a blanket..."

Hinata held in her hand a silky fabric, yet it was somehow softer than any other material she had ever felt. It was a bit thick, yet it felt as if it were flowing between her fingers. It seemed to shine with a mix of silver and gold. Yellow?

"It's made from Acromantula silk," Naruto explained. "It's supposed to be really durable. It's usually sticky at first. You collect the webs and send it to the tailor's, and they'll use the sticky part, stretching it out to make thread. They cast some spell over the threads to keep them from sticking together and then they start to weave it together. It's completely handmade. I sent Vikki in the forest to get the web for the lady who made it for you, so it's from him...it, too." He grinned at her. "Do you like it?"

"..." -

"Hinata?"

"...I-I'm sorry," she said. "Y-you got me two gifts, and the only one I had for you isn't... finished."

"Not finished? You made yours for me?" he asked, not really caring whether it was finished or not.

"W-well, I _do_ have it b-but...the spell isn't perfect yet...sorry," she said, leading him to the Christmas tree in the common room, which was decorated with red and gold ornaments. She pulled out a red package and gave it to him carefully, which mean it was probably something fragile.

Naruto carefully opened the box as quickly as possible and nearly fell over.

"Holy shit, Hinata, this is awesome!" he said, placing it on the ground as Hinata enlarged it for him. It was an almost perfect model of Hogwarts. In it's miniature form, it only reached the knee, though the details of every single stone in the wall and such made it impressive enough. At it's full size, the flying flags of the castle made it impressive enough.

"I-I used my Byakugan t-to get different views from all sides," she said to him in a slow, quiet voice. "I a-asked Kankurou to help me make small dolls for this..." she said, pulling small figures out of the box. "He thinks I was only making dolls and showed me how to do it... but it wasn't only for the dolls."

The box held a large amount of little people. About twenty to thirty dolls, that closely resembled people he saw every day at Hogwarts. He even saw a mini-Hinata, mini-Akamaru, mini-Kiba, and even a mini-Vikki. There was a doll for each of the shinobi, the Golden Trio, some Beauxbatons, a few Durmstrang students, almost all of the teachers and...

Hinta pulled out her wand. "..._E-excito pupais..._"

Many of the dolls disappeared.

"Hey, where'd they go?" Naruto asked, looking around for the missing doll-people.

That's when he noticed two figures walking outside the castle nearby the lake.

"Hey, that's Hagrid and Maxime!" Naruto said, pointing at the huge little-people.

"Y-yes," she said. "I-if the person the dolls represent are not on the school grounds, they stay in the box. I haven't finished the lake yet, so it's unfinished."

Naruto looked in through the tiny glass windows and squinted. "Hey!" he said happily. "I see us!"

Hinata smiled shyly and handed him a pair of sunglasses.

"Uh, are these for Shino?"

"Th-the incantation is _spectro_," Hinata said to him. "Then wear it."

"_Spectro_," Naruto said eagerly. He practically shoved the sunglasses on his face but paused.

"...There's no difference," he said slowly. "Wait, wait, I get it! These are trick sunglasses! They _look_ like sunglasses, but they don't even block the sun."

Hinata would have smacked her own forehead if it hadn't been for the fact that it was extremely out of character. "L-look at the castle and focus on it for a while," she said to him.

Naruto waited for a few moments, watching the castle for something interesting to happen when—

"Holy crap, I'm a Hyuga now!" Naruto said, laughing. He couldn't really see three hundred and sixty degrees, but he could see through the walls of the miniature castle. After a brief moment of hesitation, he hugged Hinata.

"Thanks! This is awesome!" he said. "This is, like, the ultimate...thing!"

"A-and I really like the flower print album and the silk cloak," she said.

Naruto laughed. "Happy Christmas!" he said loudly.

"...I-I think you mean Merry Christmas. Happy goes only with birthday..." Hinata said slowly with a smile, doing her best not to stutter.

* * *

"Thank you thank you thank you!" Ron cried outside at breakfast as Ino showed him his newly designed dress robes. "I looove you!" he said, throwing himself at her feet, though he backed off slightly when Sasuke glared at him menacingly. "...But not like that, of course," he mumbled.

"Hmph, what kind of third-rate tailor did you hire to fix _those_ rags up?" Draco asked, passing by with a smirk on his face.

"If you don't want me sewing, 'I got turned down by Hinata Hyuga' on your forehead, you had better shut your mouth, Malfoy," Ino said threateningly as she pulled out her wand.

"Believe me," Kiba muttered at the table, suspiciously adjusting his headpiece. "She _can_ do it..."

Malfoy didn't say anything else, but he still left the table with an 'I still think I'm awesomer than you' look on his face.

"What's with him?" Ino asked Sasuke. "His attitude is even worse than usual."

"Someone who clearly doesn't know him too well sent him truffles and real caviar this morning for Christmas," he said.

"Who would spend that much money on that little bastard?" Kiba said. "That stuff is expensive!"

"Well, probably not _Santa_," Sasuke said. "After all, he's supposed to separate all good from the bad and chunk coals at the bad kids' heads."

"Actually, you stuff it in the stocking."

"He's a ninja, what kind of ninja would stuff coal in a sock that he wouldn't even wear? Santa would definitely chunk it at his head," Sasuke said stubbornly crossing his arm.

"Santa wouldn't do any of that, because he doesn't exist," Naruto announced glumly as he sat down next to the group of Gryffindor shinobi and Sasuke. "I admit it, you were right, Sasuke," he said almost angrily.

"Wait, who said that Santa wasn't real?" Sasuke said. "He's definitely real."

"Okay, now you're making fun of me," he said. "Shut up..."

"No, seriously, I saw him!"

"Kiba!" Ino said. "Did you tell him that? Sasuke, tell him the truth!"

"I saw Santa outside the window last night," Sasuke said quickly as Naruto opened his mouth, ready to interrupt Sasuke.

"...You're lying," Naruto said, almost amazed.

"No way," Sasuke said. "I'm definitely serious about it. I wouldn't humiliate myself by disproving my earlier thoughts anyway, would I? The rest of us in Slytherin saw it too. Even Gaara, and he can't lie to save his _life._ And when we woke up, _Gaara did too_. And when we realized that it was Santa, we decided to try and get Gaara to sleep again. And you know what? We nearly died. Proof that Santa _exists_. Plus, we all got anonymous gifts."

"See? Santa's real," Ino said gleefully. Her voice was a bit low as if she was trying to hold back her laughter. "And guess what..._ he gave me a sewing machine!_" She clapped her hands together rapidly as she giggled. "A magical sewing machine! And make up! I must've been really good! My sewing machine works _inside_ Hogwarts _and_ my makeup doesn't run out or smear!"

"How come you told me Santa's not real?" Naruto asked Kiba.

Kiba grumbled something, glaring at his feet.

"That's because..." Ino said. "...Santa gave him deodorant and a bit of colone with a note that said, 'You really need it'."

Everyone at the table laughed. "Sasuke, what about you?" Naruto asked him.

Sasuke paused, staring at them. "Uh... I got... I got the next volume of Icha Icha Violence Volume 2," he said with a cough.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?" Naruto exclaimed, causing some of the nearby students to jump in surprise. He didn't even know that Jiraiya had finished the sequel yet, and he was rather up-to-date with all the works..

"Wait, I thought you said that the note on there said to give it to Kakashi..." Ino said thoughtfully.

They all stared at Sasuke again. "Okay, what did you _really_ get?" Kiba said, recovering from his earlier embarrassment.

"Whatever it was," Sasuke said to them, "It wasn't as embarrassing as the deodorant Santa got for you."

They all laughed at Kiba again, much to his annoyance. Even Akamaru and Vikki paused in their tug-o-war with their newest chew toys to laugh at him.

"Still, I didn't know that Jiraiya published the next book already," Naruto said. He frowned. Wait a minute... "Wait, Santa is known for having white hair, red clothes, and a creepy laugh, right?"

"Right," the others said, not sure what Naruto was getting at.

"And...Jiraiya has white hair, red shirts, and a creepy laugh, right...?"

... -

"Well," Naruto said, sighing. "Looks like we solved the mystery of the man on the roof. It was Jiraiya peeping on the girls dorms while they slept."

"Well," a voice behind them said, "unless Jiraiya managed to get his hands on a summoning scroll for deers, I'd say you're wrong about that."

Naruto jumped at the sound of the voice. "Neji! Hinata!"

The two Hyugas (plus Tenten, who's rarely mentioned anyway) stood behind them.

"Hey," Neji said. "You really think that Jiraiya was Santa?"

"There's no other explanation for a creepy white-haired guy to sneak around on rooftops jumping in through the 'chimneys' that we don't seem hae yet do," Naruto said.

"I saw it with my eyes. Santa is a huge man. Unless Jiraiya decided to eat wizard whole and gained a hundred or so pounds, I don't think it was him," Neji said firmly.

"It's not such a good idea to stand outside right now," Tenten said edgily. "I heard that there's going to be a massive—"

Whack!

A huge snowball his Sasuke in the back of the head.

"ASSHOLES!" he shouted suddenly, spinning around to see a handful of students scattering.

"—snowball fight," Tenten finished, watching Sasuke retie his silver and green scarf calmly before giving an angry, loud battle cry and giving chase to the young Hufflepuffs who dared assault him with this cold, white, and fluffy substance from hell.

"Hey, Sasuke," Naruto said to his friend's back.

"_What_?" Sasuke growled, whirling around to face Naruto when...

CRACK!

Sasuke jumped back when Naruto pulled the string off one of Cribbage's Wizarding Crackers in his face. String and confetti poured out the end.

"Uzumaki, you're going to die first. And _then_ I'll kill those other little assholes."

* * *

Gaara glanced out the window of the Great Hall as all the students attacked each other with magicked balls of snow snow. Sakura laughed nervously. She was about to say something when Gaara cut her off before she could even start talking.

"I know what you're nervous about," he said. "Your Yule Ball dress is gone."

"H-how did you know?" she asked him.

"I killed it."

"..." Sakura stared at him, her eyes wide. Gaara had little time to pull this off. Before she could recover from her initial shock to throttle him, he shoved the present in her hands and took a step back in case she decided to hit him and then open the box.

"Open it," he said firmly.

Torn between beating the crap out of Gaara and satisfying her curiosity as to what was so important about this gift, Sakura chose to unwrap the gift. Opening the box, she gasped.

"How did—how did you—?"

"I've been carrying it around ever since you chose not to buy it," Gaara said.

Sakura pulled out the kimono that she had tried on at Fujiwara Yoshiko's shop and held it up in the air to inspect it. The under kimono was a sheen pale green color, a jade hue that matched her eyes. The top layer for her kimono was a light red color, with the design of a pale pink cherry tree with falling petals on it. Quite literally.

"I also... asked Viktor Krum... who asked Fleur Delacour who asked... Kiba this morning and got Ino to tell me how to add effects to the kimono. So now the petals on the kimono fall like they're being blown by the wind, and when you wear it and walk, you can leave a trail of them. That spell doesn't last too long though. The petals disappear quickly."

"Gaara..." Sakura said, her eyes still wide. This was beautiful! It was amazing! It was... _too_ beautiful and amazing.

"Don't say you can't accept it," he said firmly. "I've just obliterated your dress for the Yule Ball."

Oh yeah...

Great, now she was confused. Should she be angry or excited?

Gaara took a deep breath, preparing himself for the speech he had been practicing over and over in his head ever since he had gotten rid of the rival kimono the night before.

"I've asked you to the Yule Ball _weeks_ ago," he said to her in a threatening voice. One that he only used when lecturing the elders or yelling at the Makotos in a particularly big accident. "Yet even though I did _ever damn thing Ino told me to do_, you brush it off as a date between _friends_. I'm surprised you are regarded as one of the most intelligent shinobi of the former Konoha rookies. I honestly want to ask you out, not as friends, but as two people just going to the ball together for more than just a good time between friends, if not less than an actual relationship, So I ask you again: _do you want to go to the Yule Ball with me as 'not-friends'_?" He glared at her menacingly.

"Like... as in our first date? Like, a date-date?" Sakura said, her eyes still wide.

"W-well—_yes_! What do you think I've been talking about? Going to the ball together as enemies?" he said, mustering his angriest threatening voice he could without shouting.

She stared at him. "You're... menacing. That's the look you're going for," she said to him slowly, as if suddenly realizing it. And she was. After observing Sasuke and his tendency to act angrier or angstier than he really was, it was a little bit easier to see through Gaara's not-really-angry act.

She smiled at him. And then she started giggling.

And she just wouldn't stop.

Gaara sweatdropped. This wasn't exactly the usual reaction he got when he threatened people. And normally, normal people didn't get this reaction when they asked someone out. This was not a normal reaction by anyone's standards, even if it _was _Gaara.

Sakura put a hand over his shoulder, wiping tears out of the corners of her eyes. "I never thought about it until now, but you're so cute when you're trying to be scary..."

Gaara stared at her. "...Oh."

DAMMIT! Is that what _everyone_ thought before he killed them? That he was _cute_? That was _not_ what he wanted people to think as their last thoughts. Maybe 'oh god I'm gonna die at the hands of the super-most powerful shinobi in the world' or 'mommy...' but now 'he's sooo cute!' That was totally wrong.

"I'll see you tonight," Sakura said, still giggling as she ran away.

Gaara didn't say anything. On the empty table next to where they were standing, Gaara spotted a small box. His gift. He hadn't opened it.

Carefully unwrapping the paper, he opened it to find a very detailed book on flying brooms.

Suddenly, three things hit him.

The first was an icy snowball from the now broken window that Shukaku had, apparently, had dubbed as 'not-dangerous' and let it hit him. The second was the fact that the day that he would fly on a broom, pigs would fly. The third was that he may actually have a real date for the Yule ball.

Oi.

His pride was injured.

He needed to sit down.

* * *

Ino of others had left the snowball fight and Christmas festivities early at five to start the most meticulous part of the preparation for dances.

"I hope you all have something you want in particular?" Ino asked them all "If you aren't sure, I have magazines for options and such. Once you're ready, feel free to come up to us for advice, help, and _hairstyling._"

"Why am I here?" Neji asked, looking at the room full of girls.

"You are here because I want you here," Tenten said firmly. "You have hair nicer than everybody in the entire room, so, of course, they'll need to come to you for help," she said with a smile. Neji almost looked flattered.

That is, until she finished her statement. "Besides, you are also going to be given the choice of leaving your hair completely down, or tying it up."

"...What?"

"You heard me, Neji. There will be no half-assed ponytail hanging on at the ends at _this_ ball. Loose ponytails are for girls often going informally. This is a _formal_ occasion, you are a man, and you _will_ do something with your hair."

Neji paused to wonder if going out with Tenten was worth the hell he went through when Tenten grabbed his ear.

"I know what you're thinking, Neji, and the answer is yes," she said. She stood behind him. "Besides, it's not that bad. Your hair is the prettiest out of all of ours—"

"Hey!"

"Aside from Ino's of course..." Tenten added skeptically. "But yours is even silkier..."

"Yeah..." Neji said slowly. "That's the problem..."

Tenten tried to grab his hair and tie it back into a tighter ponytail, only to have over half of the strands slip out of the hair band.

Tenten sweatdropped and tried it again to no avail.

"...Your hair is insanely pretty, but also insanely maddening," Tenten growled with a frightening look of determination in her eyes. Neji whimpered. "I'll get that hair tied back if it's the last thing I do..." she said through gritted teeth.

While Tenten battled an epic battle with Neji's band resistant hair, Ino, Sakura, and Hinata discussed possible hairstyles with one another.

"Both of your hair looks fine the way it is," Hinata said earnestly.

"You're a sweet girl, Hinata, but that's not completely true," Ino said. "I know, I know, my hair is like a goddess compared to you two's hair..." Sakura and Hinata smiled, sweatdropping. "...But the fact remains that this is the only Yule Ball we will ever have. We, as girls, need to do something to remember."

Sakura flipped through a book she had gotten for Christmas as Ino inspected Hinata all around. "Hm... Hyuga's naturally have smooth and silky hair. That makes it nice down, but tying it up can be a bit difficult. We need something simple yet elegant. Oh, oh, oh, I know. We'll tie it into a half-ponytail and spike the tips—"

"_Spike_?"

"Okay, not necessarily spikes," Ino assured her. "Not literally. Flare it out a bit, yeah? What do you think?"

Hinata shook her head. "No thank you."

"Yeah, now that I think about it, it doesn't look 'you'. Hm, what else could we possibly do with you...? Oh, I know!" Ino clapped her hands together excitedly. "I'll twist your hair, but keep it in a half-ponytail."

Hinata hesitated. "...Twist?"

"Yeah. It'll flare out beautifully!" she gushed.

"...You just told me that idea before."

"But in my head, it's a completely different look! I just can't really explain it but it's sooo pretty! C'mon, Naruto will love it!"

"Mmm..." she mumbled.

"Is that a 'yes' I hear?" Ino asked Hinata brightly.

"Yes..." she said. Ino cackled delightedly. Hinata was rather worried.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"What are you doing, Mitarashi?"

"What do you think I'm doing?" Anko asked Severus Snape. "I'm going to the Yule ball!"

"I already know _that_," he sneered. "As odd as you are, I have a hard time believing you of all people would wear fancy clothes from wherever you're from for absolutely no reason."

"Actually, you'd be surprised," she replied with a shrug.

Snape resisted the childish urge to roll his eyes. "No, I don't think I would be. In any case, allow me to clarify my question. What are you doing with _me_?"

Anko currently had a deathgrip on his sleeves and was trying to drag him out of his laboratory. Much to his annoyance.

"Well, I'm going to the Yule Ball, and I'm taking you with me!" she said cheerfully.

"Do I get _any_ say in this at all?" he asked her with a black glare.

"Nope."

"...That was a rhetorical question."

"A question is a question, and I answered it," she said. "Get dressed now!"

"No."

"How about I drag you out to the ball with you dressed in dirty potion stained robes? You know I could do that."

"...I'll be out in five minutes."

Anko laughed and skipped around in his office as Snape slammed his doors shut. Meanwhile, Anko fiddled with her light green kimono, which contrasted with the dark green she wore underneath it, with silver snakes darting through the grass at the bottom of her robes. Her purple and dark green obi didn't have many moving objects, though flowers would sometimes bloom and close slowly at random intervals.

Moments later, Snape left his rooms dressed in black robes.

"Why!" Anko said, with exaggerated enthusiasm and a slightly annoyed twitch in her eye. "Don't you look... the same way you always do!" She was originally going to say un-handsome, but decided that if that thing in his hand was what she thought it was, then she had better be a bit nicer.

"I took this from my personal library in the laboratory," he said to Anko, handing her a book. 1001 Wizard Cooking Techniques, She excitedly flipped open the first page and stopped to stare at its contents in shocked silence.

It was a journal, all handwritten in neat, narrow handwriting, almost like Severus's but a bit different in style, with spells, potions, pictures of witches and wizards writhing in pain with various odd symptoms and conditions, and captions at the bottom of every page. It was one of the Darker books that Snape had, though he had already memorized them. And it was literally about 'cooking' wizards.

Instead of the horror that Snape expected Anko to react with, she grinned and hugged him.

"Awesome!" she said. "I knew it! Thanks! This is as good as the scroll that my teacher gave me years ago! Only with magic!"

He watched her closely for any pretending. "You aren't... disgusted?" he asked, barely able to hide his own amazement and... horror. This woman must have had a stomach of steel. Even he had felt sick the first time he had read this book. Then again, he was much younger, but still, she wasn't nauseated at all?

"Grossed out? Not in the least!" she said. "I love it!"

"...What?"

Anko grinned and fished around in her sleeves. "I got something for you too!" she announced.

"...If it's been in your sleeves all this time, I don't want it."

"Nonsense. You can't refuse a gift like this when you're got a peeping tom watching your every move!"

"...What?"

"A joke, a joke," she assured him. "But that Moody fellow doesn't like you much at all, does he? He's always making jabs at you and he's always pointing his eyeball at you, it's _creepy_. So I did a few experiments and a little bit of research and made _this_!" She produced a ratty looking wooden box. It didn't really look like much.

"What is it?" he said to her.

"Open it!"

"And risk my life? You open it. My talents are far more useful than yours, whatever they are."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," she said, shaking her head. "Then again, our worth is only a matter of opinion." Nevertheless, she opened the box and showed him twelve marble sized...marble slabs.

"What are these?" he asked her.

"Moody's magical eyeball can't see through marble."

Snape paused. He didn't know that... "I don't think this is much of a barrier between he eye and me," he said wryly, holding up the marble marble the size of a thumbnail."

"I'm not _that_ silly," she said proudly. "Stick it on the ground or the ceiling or the wall, press the tip of your wand against it really hard for fifteen seconds, and your wall is marble! I made it for the Yule ball dance floor, too. Am I good or what?"

"...You're good," he admitted begrudgingly, taking the box she handed him. "Tell me, why do you want to go to the ball anyway? It's not as if you have a dance partner anyway," he sneered.

"Why _not_ go?" she asked in response. "I don't feel like missing out on the food and drink and the insanely loud racket of modern wizard music. Besides, I totally want to see how Sasuke's going to pull off the opening dance."

Snape sighed. He didn't know why, but that woman just had it out for that Uchiha. Not that she was ever completely biased towards him like Snape was to Harry, but it was curious that she was so disgusted by just the look on his face. Not that it really matters, Snape thought to himself. Focus on the issues now. Going to the Yule Ball. Just watching might not be so bad.

Plus, he had a few issues to discuss with Karkaroff anyway.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The entrance hall was packed with students, waiting for the doors to open at eight o'clock. Interhouse couples edged through the crowd, trying to find each other. Harry and Ginny walked side-by-side, trying to look for people they particularly recognized so they could stare at in awe by how much different they looked when dressed nicely.

Ginny stared at a girl with wavy, dirty-blond colored hair, wide eyes, and funny looking earrings. "Is that—? Oh, why, it is... How...how odd..." Ginny said, looking at her.

"What is it?" Harry asked. "It's a girl from my year," Ginny said to him. "I didn't expect too many people from my year to be here. How nice..."

"A friend of yours?"

"She's in Ravenclaw. Her name's Luna Loveg—oh, she's coming over here." It seemed that Luna had spotted them with her overly large eyes and waved to Ginny before walking over to them.

"You don't like her or something?" Harry whispered to her as Luna approached.

"She's nice. Odd, but nice," Ginny said, shrugging. "Oh, hi, Luna. I didn't really expect to see you here," she said to the girl, eying her rather dull gray dress. Harry had to admit, it wasn't too bad. It made Ginny look especially radiant in her own green dress, standing next to Luna.

Ginny and Luna continued their small talk as Harry, feeling a bit bored, started tuning out on them, inspecting the people around him.

He may have seen Shino walking around toting a short girl with hair cut in layers around her chin. It was hard to tell whether it was him or not, considering this person had a face—something Shino often lacked. No, no, this was definitely Shino. No one but he would wear sunglasses three hours past five. He had the high collar look, as usual. If it weren't for the fact that his clothes looked particularly new and had a less rough more cotton-like look to it. He reminded Harry of a character from one of Dudley's game. Auron or something.

The girl he was with was vaguely familiar and had a short, dark green dress on. She was like a small version of Ginny with shorter hair, green eyes, and a darker dress with a different style. Which was a relief for Harry. Girls always freaked out when they saw someone else wearing the same outfit for some reason.

A group of Slytherins passed by with Malfoy in the lead, as always. He was wearing velvet dress robes with a high collar that Shino's outfit put to shame. Pansy Parkinson, in all her frilly pale pink dress and pug-faced glory, clutched Malfoy's arm. Malfoy paid little attention to the crowd around him, glancing anxiously in the crowd.

Harry spotted a larger group of girls in dresses all with similar styles. Kimono. Definitely Naruto's group.

The girls were much more noticeable in their kimono than the guys were in theirs. Sakura wore a light red kimono decorated with pink petals at the bottom and literally falling to her feet. Her hair looked a little bit longer—Ino's doing, no doubt—starting straight but becoming wavier as it reached her shoulders. Gaara stood next to her. Harry was no guru when it came to reading expressions, but Gaara was definitely odd, with a mixture of annoyance, embarrassment, covetousness, and a couple of other dozen odd emotions. Unlike the rest of the group he was with, he didn't wear some sort of fancy kimono. Instead, he wore a formal suit that was an almost creepy dark red color, with gold patterns decorating his clothes.

Shikamaru stood next to an abnormally cheerful looking Temari. Harry could have sworn that just earlier that day, Temari was angry with Shikamaru, but it seem that whatever the problem was, they had definitely made up. Or they were just hiding their problems very well. Temari wore a black and dark green with a few large purple dots on various parts of her, ah, kimono. Her hair was done in a messy bun. And, unlike the effort Temari may have put into readying herself for the Yule Ball, Shikamaru looked like he always did, only a kimono of different shades of blue with a few white clouds decorating his clothes.

Neji and Tenten probably had the most...well, it would have been even better if they were both girls, but... well Neji was a pretty guy, anyway. He wore a white under kimono that almost blended perfectly with the silver top layer of his kimono. If it wasn't awkward staring at the nearly indiscernible patterns, Harry would have seen the pale gold birds flying throw the trees with white and gold feathers seeming to move in slow motion as the birds went into flight. Tenten wore a satin red Chinese-style dress—which Harry found rather ironic, considering their Japanese descent—and had her hair tied up in her usual bun, but it half of it was left down and what was left tied up in gold silk ribbons. Neji's hair. On the other hand, was forced into a half ponytail and was braided down. In addition, he wore a silky gold bandage across his forehead. Harry snickered silently to himelf, realizing Tenten's failed attempt to tie his hair back.

Not that he looked bad. If Neji had been a girl, Harry had no doubt half the guys at the Yule Ball would be on him in seconds.

Harry frowned. With the light colored clothes, opposed to the darker uniform usually worn at Hogwarts, Neji's eyes suddenly reminded him of Mr. Ollivander's silvery eyes. This thought had passed through his mind several times before, but it had never been his top priority. Like how it still wasn't now.

Harry continued scanning through the cloud and spotted Ino.

Her light blue and green kimono matched Sasuke's dark blue and black kimono almost perfectly. The almost faded waterfall and the forest complimented the foggy mountains on his black clothes. Sasuke was Sasuke, so he looked normal even in new clothes like this, but Ino was much more eye-catching in Harry's opinion. Well, then again, as a girl compared to a guy, of _course_ the pretty girl would draw more attention from the other guys. Her hair was left down for almost the first time since she arrived months ago. Sure, she probably slept with her hair down, but still, the difference. If it weren't for her date and slightly different body build, she would have been an almost exact replica of Fleur Delacour.

Speaking of which, Harry's jaw dropped when he saw Fleur in stunning robes of silvery-satin. Harry spotted Kiba's large puppy standing next to her, seeming extremely careful in keeping the girl's robes clean. Harry had a bad feeling about this, and he couldn't really tell why—

Oh, nevermind. Now he knew.

Kiba, looking surprisingly well-groomed for this occasion, was wearing formal black clothing similar to the outfit that Harry had first seen him wearing at the Quidditch World Cup.

No... way...

Kiba. Loud. Obnoxious. And smelly.

Fleur. Beautiful. Arrogant. Superficial. Snobby. And not smelly.

Harry shook the image out of his head of those two making out. This was not the couple made in heaven.

This was the couple made in the twilight zone.

He spotted Ron in the crowd, snickering to himself as he saw him trying to fend off a particularly clingy Lavender in her... lavender-colored dress.

"Are those new earrings?"

Luna smiled, looking somewhat airheaded. "Oh yes, my date gave them to me earlier," she said. "Speaking of which, have you seen him?"

"I don't know, who's 'him'?" Ginny asked.

"Kankurou."

Harry's head shot back to the conversation. _WHA._...?

HIM? DATE? KANKUROU? GIRL?

Harry searched the crowd frantically trying to find a familiar face, which, it turns out, wasn't so familiar at all. There was no cat-cap in sight, and he found no signs of face paint on anyone's face at all.

Whether it was on purpose or not, Kankurou was the master of disguise.

"Hey, Luney!" an oddly familiar voice shouted. Harry turned to the source of the voice to find himself staring at an oddly unfamiliar face. ...Wait a minute.

"Hello, Kankurou," Luna Lovegood said to HER DATE. He wore a simple dark purple and black outfit with small white stars with a fog drifting along the surface. "Thank you again for the earrings."

"No problem. It was cheap," Kankurou said to her.

"I like it," she said, still looking as dazed as when Harry had first seen her.

Oh.

_Now_ Harry understood. No sane girl would ever go out with Kankurou. Not if she _really_ knew him. Which is probably why Kankurou just so happened to choose an insane one.

The oak doors opened, and everyone turned away from their conversations to look inside. Through the windows, they could see the the lawn of the castle had been transformed into a grotto full of hundreds of fairy lights. With life fairies.

"Champions over here, please!" Professor McGonagall called out. "Over here!"

All of the champions and their dance partners waited inside the Great Hall while the rest of the students sat down in seats. Fleur and Kiba, surprisingly, didn't look at all uncomfortable with each other, talking and laughing. It struck Harry odd that Kiba all of a sudden knew French. Viktor Krum and his mysterious date, who wore a floaty periwinkle-blue material, stood next to each other, looking somewhat awkward but still happy nevertheless as the girl engaged the quidditch player in a somewhat one-sided conversation. Her voice was so familiar...

Wait...

Hermione!

This was, indeed, a night of shocking revelations. First Kiba and Fleur, then Kankurou and some psycho fangirl, and now Hermione and Viktor Krum?-! This was insane! Hermione didn't even look like Hermione. Her bushy hair was now sleek and shiny and tied up into an elegant knot at the back of her head, almost like the hairstyle of the girl sitting next to Naru—

Hinata was fall-out-of-your-seat beautiful. She wore her hair in an intricate braid that was tied up into a bun on the back of her head with her bangs slightly curled, framing her face. There were a few strands here and there in her hair poking out in completely appropriate places. Ino's work, of course.

Harry vaguely wondered how the heck Ino ever became some 'mercenary'. What did she do to her enemies? Style them to death? Wait, no, she was probably some sort of torturing interrogator person. He coughed, imagining Ino doing such a thing. 'Answer my questions or lose your eyebrows! It's your choice! Be prepared to _face my tweezers!"_

A horrible fate, indeed.

Naruto himself wore a light and dark blue kimono thing, that had small foxes playing on the orange embers that danced on his belt. Orange and blue didn't ordinarily match, but, as usual, Naruto did that weird thing that made anything look ordinary on him.

Naruto and Hinata ended up standing by Cedric and Cho, which was somewhat ironic. The light haired wizards with their near-identical authentically Asian dance partners. Cho and Hinata weren't extremely similar to each other, but the resemblance was almost uncanny. The only thing that separated them were their eyes. Plus, the fact that Cho was Chinese and Hinata was Japanese (probably). ...Not that Harry could really tell the difference between the two ethnicities.

Everyone who passed by the champions and their partners watched and smiled and turned their faces away to hide their envy. Kiba flicked them off and stuck out his tongue impishly. Fleur shook her head, looking oddly amused. It seemed rather odd to Harry. He had always thought of her as a snobbish French Beauxbatons student who did nothing but complain about how lower-classed Hogwarts was in comparison to the great and wonderful _Beauxbaton._

"Hermione, you look _amazing_," Ginny whispered to Viktor's unexpected dance partner.

"You do too, Ginny," Hermione said in response, smiling. Harry suddenly noticed how peculiarly straight her teeth were.

Once everyone else was settled in the Hall, Professor McGonagall, in all her red tartan, wreath-bearing glory, firmly ordered the champions and their partners to get in line in pairs and to follow her. They did so, and everyone in the Great Hall applauded, with the few too-stunned-to-do-a-thing exceptions. All of the Triwizard judges sat at the front table, watching them closely.

The walls of the Hall was completely covered in sparkling silver frost, with hundreds of garlands of mistletoe and ivy crossing the starry black ceiling. The House tables were gone, replaced by a countless number of smaller, lantern-lit tables that seated a dozen people. The front table where the champions were assigned to sit with the judges was larger and could fit more people. All tables were decorated with a simple yet elegant white table cloth and a poinsettia in the center, as well as crystal glasses, porcelain dishes, and silver.

Not that Harry had much time to ponder about the expert who helped redesign the Hall. He was a bit preoccupied, dancing with Ginny and focusing on not tripping over his feet. Ginny, it seemed, was doing the same, focusing only on her feet and stopping only to occasionally look Harry in the eye and suddenly look away.

Naruto danced almost automatically. Odd, since he didn't seem to be the type to dance well, though from what Harry knew about Naruto, he wouldn't have been surprised if the blond had stayed up and trained himself to dance or something like that. Neji's dancing wasn't unexpected, and Gaara, who looked somewhat paranoid at the moment with Sakura, was fine. Sasuke, on the other hand, was constantly stumbling around, but... he managed to pull it off with a smirk that made it look like he was playing around on purpose.

If it hadn't been for the fact that Naruto had told Harry that Sasuke couldn't dance, he would have thought it was just an act like the other students.

Finally, Ino got tired of Sasuke's fooling around and gave him a small pinch on an arm that was wavering over her butt. He sulked a bit when she glared at him—surprisingly, they didn't lose a beat as they continued. Sasuke seemed to sigh for himself. He pulled Ino close to him, his head leaning down over her shoulder slightly, and proceeded to glaring at Cedric and Cho, the couple behind them, his eyes seeming red with anger.

Somehow, after all the foolery Sasuke pulled out on the dance floor, everything went perfectly after that. Well, almost perfectly. Cedric was rather unnerved by Sasuke's eyes, and Cedric and Cho managed to trip up a few times. Harry couldn't help but smirk.

_Take that, you date stealing, useless pretty boy_. ((wow, Harry does have a mean streak...))

A few times, Harry was able to glance at the spinning crowd around him. He spotted Ron watching with Lavender. Lavender looked ecstatic, waiting for the first song to end so she could join the champions on the dance floor. Ron, on the other hand, was glaring at them all dancing. Karkaroff had the same expression. And Malfoy, who looked somewhat preoccupied as if he looking for someone, would also occasionally look up to throw death-glares to the dance floor, with Pansy sulkily following after him.

Now that Harry thought about it, a lot of people were seriously disliking the champions right now.

Dumbledore smiled happily as the champions approached the top table. When the champions and their partners reached the table where the judges sat, Harry jumped up to see Percy sitting next to him with an expectant look on his face as he drew up a seat for Harry to sit in.

Reluctantly, Harry sat down next to him.

"Hi, Perc—"

"I've been promoted," he said. Naruto snorted. He sounded almost as if he was announcing his election as the supreme ruler of the universe. "I'm now Mr. Crouch's personal assistant, and I'm here representing him."

"Why isn't _he_ here?" Naruto asked him.

"I'm afraid to say that Mr. Crouch isn't well, not well at all. He hasn't been right since the World Cup. Hardly surprising—it's overwork. He's not as young as he was—though still quite brilliant, of course. But the World Cup was a fiasco for the whole Ministry. And then we had the tournament to arrange, and the aftermath of the Cup to deal with—that revolting Skeeter woman buzzing around. No, poor man, he's having a well-earned, quiet Christmas. I'm just glad he knew he had someone he could rely on to take his place..."

Naruto had stopped listening after 'Mr. Crouch isn't well' and had leisurely picked up the fancy menu and glanced down the list.

"Oy, Hinata!" he said, showing her the menu. "Look at what they've got for for desserts! That's your favorite right? Cinnamon rolls—?"

He was cut off when the cinnamon rolls appeared on his plate.

"Wow... I get dessert first! I love this!"

Glancing at his own menu, Harry looked at his plate. "Pork chops?" And pork chops appeared on his plate.

He glanced at Hermione, wondering if she was going to eat her own meal. After all, it meant a lot of work for the house-elves, didn't it? However, she hardly seemed to take notice of this, in a conversation with Viktor Krum.

"Vell, ve have a castle also, not as big as this, nor as comfortable, I am thinking. Ve have just four floors, and the fires are lit only for magical purposes. But ve have grounds larger even than these—though in the vinter, ve have very little daylight, so ve are not enjoying them, But in summer ve are flying every day, over the lakes and the mountains—"

'Now, now, Viktor," Karkaroff said, laughing an obviously fake laugh. "Don't go giving away anything else, now, or your charming friend will know exactly where to find us...!"

"I don't see how you got one of the best looking girls around here to go with _you_ of all people," Sakura said to Kiba in amazement.

"Well what can I say?" Kiba said with a shrug. "I've got major animal magnetism. Anyway, you don't have to sound so amazed."

"_Hey_," Percy said. "You two shouldn't be here!" He was referring to Temari and Shikamaru, who were not standing next to the table.

"What, I can't talk to my own brothers?" she asked, looking so offended that Percy kept quiet.

"We won't be long," Sihkamaru said to Percy. "I'm Shikamaru Nara."

For some reason, Percy's eyes lit up. "Oh, the Minister and Mr. Crouch mentioned you several times!" he said excitedly.

"I know," Shikamaru said, looking uncharacteristically serious, with a look of almost intense focus. "I don't suppose I could arrange the meeting for you now, if you have any free time?"

"I don't see why not," Percy said perkily, conjuring a pen and pencil. The genius and the almost-but-not-quite genius started talking about something that was completely beyond Naruto. His attention span wasn't that long. He glanced up at the stage, where the 'Weird Sisters' who were actually guys (odd...) trooped onto the stages, wearing clothes that almost made them look as if they had been mangled by a pack of wild animals.

"Hinata, let's dance!" Naruto said excitedly, pulling her up. He hesitated under Neji's watchful eyes when he saw Tenten mouth 'I'll deal with him'.

"I saw that," Neji said suspiciously to Tenten.

"I know you did," she said innocently, as she handed him a bottle. "But there's nothing you can really do to stop me, right?"

Neji sighed and downed his own drink.

"You want to dance?" Tenten asked him.

"Suuure," he said, drawing the word out. Surprisingly, he didn't sound sarcastic at all. "Lead the way, Tenten."

"Oooh, I'm going to kill that boy," Naruto heard Ino mutter under his breath as she and Sasuke also left the table. Who, Neji?

Wait, no, it was Harry she was talking about, if the direction of her glares were any clue. And Naruto had no idea why. Not that it mattered. He was with Hinata tonight. He actually spent a few enjoyable moments on the marble floor with Hinata before, as usual, something broke out.

"_Don't call him Vicky!_" he heard a girl shrieked.

Vikki? Naruto could've sworn he'd left the fox in the dorm with several hours with of chew toys. Oh way, it was only Ron and Hermione arguing.

"This is about international cooperation!" Hermione said angrily to Ron. "_So stop being a prat and next time don't ask me as a last resort_!"

Naruto paused, holdng Hinata's hand. "Uh... let's move over there," he said to her. "I don't want to be anywhere near here right now while I'm with you."

"Vare is Herm-own-ninny?" Krum had arrived at the spot Hermione had just left. He and Ron exchanged a few stony words before Viktor sulkily left, though Sakura and Gaara were, at least, kind enough to point him in the right direction.

"Made friends with Viktor Krum, have you?" they heard Percy ask his brother once he was done with Shikamaru and Shikamaru had left with Temari to dance. "Excellent! That's the whole point, you know—international magical cooperation!"

And so Hinata and Naruto edged toward the other side the the Great Hall, only to find that Harry and Ron heading towards them probably to get drinks.

"I can't seem to get away from them all, can I?" Naruto asked, wanting a little bit more privacy. This was, after all, their first date.

"Let's go outside," Hinata said. "It's more private out there."

Even Naruto wasn't fool enough to overlook Hinata's obvious discomfort in the loud, crowded Hall. To his surprise, he found many of the shinobi standing outside.

"Took you long enough," Shino's date said.

"..._Mikoto_!"

"You didn't recognize me earlier?" the girl asked with a grin. She looked up at Shino, who had his whole 'Auron' look going on, with his overcoat missing. She kissed his cheek and took off her shoes so she could run back to Hogsmeade on foot. "I promise I'll give you back your coat next time you visit our shop!" she said cheerfully.

The moment she left, Shino let out a sigh of relief.

"You didn't look to stressed out when you were dancing with her," Kankurou said with a smirk.

"..." Shino answered him.

"What are all you guys doing out here?" Naruto asked.

"Honestly," Tenten said to him, "how can you expect us to be comfortable in that crowd? It's all loud noise, bad music, and jumping up and down. I preferred the other dancing. This must be some sort of mosh pit or something."

The present shinobi were all standing in their circle. Sakura, Gaara, Ino, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Temari, and Kiba were still somewhere inside, probably enjoying themselves. Neji was leaning heavily on Tenten's shoulder with heavily lidded eyes, looking exhausted. Kankurou seemed to have 'lost' his dance partner once the required dancing was finished.

"Kankurou, what happened to your dance partner?" Hinata asked him.

He feigned a look of confusion and held his hands up in an 'oops, well will you look at that?' sign. "Oh gee, it seems I've lost her," he said. "Pity, she's a nice girl, too."

"That's just mean," Tenten said.

"She doesn't even like dancing," he shrugged. "She's hunting some kind of mistletoe infesting thing right now anyway. Besides, you're not the epitome of great date etiquettes. Look what you did to Neji?"

"What did you do?" Naruto asked Tenten suddenly.

"Oh, by the way, you guys missed an interesting conversation," Tenten said. "It seems that Karkaroff and Snape are on a first-name basis. Karkaroff wants to run from something, Snape is staying, There's something that's getting 'clearer and clearer for months' apparently. I'd've had Neji check it out but..."

"Oh yeah, what'd you do with Neji!" Naruto said, poking Neji's covered forehead, causing the Hyuga to nearly fall backward.

"Naruto-bastard, stop-all-now!" Neji said, holding on to Tenten for dear life as he staggered around for a moment on his own two wavering feet.

Naruto glanced at Tenten, who shrugged in response.

"Except for me," Neji muttered, clutching his head. He looked up suddenly, hearing something, but falling forward from the sudden movement.

"I jus' knew... knew you were like me... Was it yer mother or yer father?"

Hagrid?

"I—I don't know what you mean, 'Agrid..."

...MAXIME!

The shinobi had no desire to heard anything romantic between the two huge people and were slowly starting to creep away when they found themselves unable to avoid hearing something rather interesting.

"It was my mother. She was one o' the las' ones in Britain. 'Course, I can' remember her too well... she left, see. When I was abou' three. She wasn' really the maternal sort. Well... it's not in their natures, is it? Dunno what happened to her... might be dead fer all I know... Me dad was broken-hearted when she wen'. Tiny little bloke, my dad was. By the time I was six, I could lift him up an' put him on top o' the dresser if he annoyed me. Used ter make him laugh... Dad raised me... but he died, o' course, jus' after I started school. Sorta had ter make me own way after that. Dumbledore was a real help, mind. Very kind ter me, he was... So... anyway... enough abou' me. What about you? Which side you got it on?"

"It is chilly. I think I will go in now."

"Eh? No, don' go!" I've—I've never met another one before!"

"Anuzzer _what_, precisely?"

"_Don't say it, don't say it..."_ the shinobi silently willed to Hagrid, but they lacked whatever telepathy that Ino had and Hagrid said it.

"Another half-gian', o' course!"

"_'Ow dare you_!" Madame Maxime shrieked. Her voice exploded through the peaceful night air like a foghorn. Behind him, the shinobi were only vaguely aware of Kiba and Fleur falling out of a private looking rosebush. "I 'ave nevair been more insulted in my life! 'Alf-giant? _Moi?_ I 'ave— I 'ave big bones!"

She stormed away, leaving a stunned Hagrid in the dust.

"Come on..." Shino said, one of the few things he rarely said. "We should go now..."

But Naruto didn't move an inch.

"Wa'ss wrong?" Neji said to him.

"How do you...?" the blond said, staring blankly at nothing.

"How do we what?" Tenten asked.

"How do you think... Hagrid's parents... _had_ him?" Naruto said. "I mean, a giant woman and a human-sized wizard? Did he use a _ladder_ or something? That...that's..."

Naruto didn't need to finish his stunned sentence as everyone who heard and understood his question screamed.

**My Thinking Corner**

Oh my god, that was so boring. I'm really sorry about this chapter people. I honestly think that the descriptions for everything combined was longer than the rest of the chapter itself! And I'm also sorry to JK Rowling (my brit goddess!) for copying parts directly out of the book. It was really hard to write at this chapter. What do you do at a dance? You eat, and you dance. But I can't just write: 'Naruto went to the dance, danced with Hinata, ate some kind of Christmas pudding thing, and had a nice time.' I mean, that the hell is that? I actually meant to try and put Neji in stiletto's again, but I decided against it. Better luck nest time. I'm also really sorry for focusing more on Harry than Naruto. I know, everyone's all, 'We want Naruto!' or 'More NaruHina!' But... but...I'm crap at romance-writing.

(cries in the corner)

Anyway, sorry it took so long. I'm not good at this type of genre. Romance. (shudders in fear) What's the difference from putting pale pink and light pink? Huh? HUH? Hah! You fashion experts (glares particularly towards my sister)! Take THAT! Okay, okay, I'd like to thanks. I did my best to stick a bit of everybody's ideas in the fic. Basicallyanidiot, I'm really really really sorry I didn't include all of your details for the clothes in this story. And I'd like to thank you for all the help you've given to me for the clothing design. ((oh, I also forgot to mention that I realized in the middle of writing that Kiba wasn't on the list. Not that it really matters, because

I copied some of the decorations from my cousin's weddings (yes, she had multiple weddings, one viet-style, another with the pretty white dress)

Hairstyles were suggested by a friend, who's not really a reader, but someone obsessed with hairstyles enough to help me decide who does stuff to their hair. God bless you, woman. (thumbs up sign).

Anyway, the names in the newspaper article were all made up on a whim. So if it just happens to be your name, first I will be very surprised, and then I will assure you that I am not stalking you and putting your name in the fic.

Anyway, I learned recently that the Naruto world has computers and relatively modern-day technology! ...WHAT THE HELL?

...Actually, this is perfect. (writes down notes)

ANYWAY, there's also an important question to you readers as to what you want to happen. Majority vote: should Snape meet a) Voldemort, b) Orochimaru, or c) both?

**WritingOnAFullmoon:** Thanks for being one of my first reviewers!

**Celtic Pride**: Well, yes, Kiba isn't ordinarily the sneaky type, and I didn't mean to write him as one. I actually think of him as the guy who focuses on money and the prizes at hand... Okay, okay, in my opinion, I think he'd make a good henchman.

**Hylian dragoness**: Ten minutes of no air, eh? That's a record... And yes, I totally rock.

**Anonymous**: Thanks. I surprised _myself_ when I didn't go by the book couples. But in my opinion, the Patil twins hardly play a role in here, so I decided to get rid of them. They're pretty enough to get other dates. As for why Shino was hanging around the shop, well, you've seen why. I personally hate CannonxOC, but it was better than the alternatives. Pretending the dateless shinobi don't exist, letting perfectly not-butt-ugly shinobi get a date ((c'mon, if Kankurou can get a date, why not the others!)), or making some kind of random emergency in which they all disappear for a bit. DracoHinata? Yes, that would be awkward. Luckily, it wasn't Hinata who had to deal with that awkward confrontation. Ino handled it just as well, I think. Though I suppose Malfoy came out with more than just his ego bruised... Anyway, I don't think Neji really minds Naruto, though I don't think he'd like Ino's meddling. I'm sorry there wasn't more of Hinata. As a promise to you, I'll put it more in her view in the next chapter.

**Anonymous**: I read those megaman comics for days! I love it! XD

**Too lazy to get an account...**: I'm sure that by the end, Ino's probably going to have made the most money out of all of the shinobi... More true than you'll know. And it's not as if all of the shinobi knew how to dance Sakura, Neji, and Tenten missed it when Professor Sinistra called them out to teach them, but they managed to figure out how to dance by asking around. Sasuke, on the other hand, hates both Anko and Snape, so he skipped out on the lesson, and he has too much pride to ask someone else. And yes, Sasuke's a bit of a pervert. I think of him as a guy trying to make up for lost time. Lol, yeah, just reading that made me dizzy, but if you think about it, you really could figure out who they all are. We're all Narutards! Anyway, I hope you like the KakaXKure at the end of the fic. It's like a sequel to the random Kakashi moment in the previous chapter. As for your second review, thank you! And actually, yes, it's not allowed. Which is why I had removed all of the responses up until chapter 22, where I realized that if I don't respond to reviews, I feel rude (whether I am or am not) and then start freaking out. Yeah, I have a weird obsession when it comes to manners, I guess. Nettiquete...yeah.  
**Rain2187**: Well, I hope this chapter was worth the wait as well. And yes, you were right about the Kankurou-Luna. It's one of the stranger couples in my fic...

**aznelements**: Thanks. Ordinarily, I'm tonedeaf and can't rhyme for my life, but after eight hours of hard work, I managed to add, like, two more lines into the mersong! ...Okay, it wasn't really that long, but it felt like forever.

**Darkflame**: ...crap, remind me what? ((I'm feeling a bit stupid, right now...)) And I'm feeling even stupider that I didn't have Anko think of the substitution technique.

**Random girl**: I had a hard time thinking up a date for Shino. I didn't want him being like Kankurou just picking up a random girl so he could go out with her on just one date. AND HOW ON EARTH DID YOU GUESS ABOUT THE KIBAFLEUR PART?-! Lol, you're the first person to guess that! The very first-first! (dances) I suppose it makes sense though, with him shoving over a mysterious blond girl away so Naruto wouldn't see her, and then her being seventeen already so she can Apparate away. Or was it the fact that she was playing with Akamaru? Or the part that Kiba where Kiba grinned when Naruto said that Fleur was one of the few who knew what he was getting for Hinata so that Kiba could find out what he was getting for her? Or the part where Ino said that if so-and-so had a chance with Fleur, then Ron could too? Anyways, you're awesome. No one else got the hint and mentioned it in a review.

**Shadow-Sess-Marlfox**: Thanks! It's nice to know I'm not the only one to appreciate the art of putting two characters who despise each other (or, at least, one who despises the other) together! ...Okay, there _are_ a number of NaruSasus and NaruInos and Sasuhinas and other things, but not one relatively ugly/scary character and a lovable one! Wait... dammit, there are the Ibiki/Ankos! I'm not aloooone! Anyway, I suppose I can have a boggart in the chapter or something, and stick it earlier around the second task or something. Know that if I do that, it's for yooouu! As for the second task... I can't really tell at this point. I've forgotten the timeline of events... Give me five chapters. It'll PROBABLY be around there. As for the chocolate cake, (drooooool). Yum... Anyway, I'd say Kankurou looks more like a cat than a teddy bear. Not that it matters, because _both_ can be pretty scary...

**AizSaku**: Well, Tenten's not only bent on getting Neji back. She's also bent on getting a last name. I think she would like to marry someday and have the last name, 'Hyuga Tenten', instead of being 'Tenten, girl with no last name'. Anyway, I don't really consider myself a Sasuke basher, but I do like sticking characters in odd/uncomfortable situations. It's funny like that. To me, anyway. On the other hand, so long as the bashing isn't out of hand, I find them rather funny. Anyway, aren't you happy Gaara finally told Sakura to go with him as a date? Of course, it cost him his peace of mind. 'Did _everyone_ think he was cute while he was trying to kill them?' The world may never know.

**Set jerro**: I put my e-mail address on my profile page.

**Carolyn**: Thanks for reviewing!

Thanks for your support! I was actually sad for a few minutes, but (luckily) I finally got mad! I'm a bit of a slow burner, I guess. You wouldn't happen to be ... (thinks of which name to call you) Eric, would you? Or just some other reviewer? Anyway, thanks! ((shakes head) the person was...was... well, the genius decided to leave his/her e-mail address on its first review. Smart, eh? lol)

_((Anyway, I wrote this on a whim, but this is what Santa got for Sakura. Don't ask me if Santa really exists or not. Please don't.))_

**The Encyclopedia of Gaara**

Introduction to Your Kazekage, by Aburame Shino

Sabaku Gaara: Angry Or Pathologically Insane?_ The Mind of a Psycho..._, by Inuzuka Kiba (_...tic Hero_)

Love Compatibility Chart and Statistics, by Yamanaka Ino, Hyuga Neji, Tenten, Nara Shikamaru, Sabaku Temari, and a survey of one hundred girls chosen at random.

Places to Go on a Date That Gaara Won't Say No To, by Sabaku Temari and Kankurou

Gifts for Gaara! by Makoto siblings

Unofficial Translations: The Many Glares of Gaara-kichi, by Makoto Mikoto and Fujiwara Yoshiko

Looking Underneath the Underneath—Possible Hidden Meanings of Certain Reactions in Specific Situations, by Rock Lee, Chouji Akimichi, Nara Shikamaru, Yamanaka Ino, Hyuga Neji, and Hyuga Hinata

What NOT to do in Gaara's Presence, by EVERYONE

**Merry Christmas! (**(even though right now...IT'S NOT.))

Kurenai stared at the small box for what felt like forever. The note on the outside read 'Open at 8:00 PM'. And now it was 7:59. She wasn't just curious, right now. She was annoyed. Before this December 25 holiday in that _wizarding_ _world_. He went into _so much detail_ about how wonderful it was and how couples spent their time giving gifts to each other and _they were a couple who weren't even in the same world!_ The nerve, bringing something insensitive like that up. It had been for the sake of the mission, but when she had volunteered to leave Hogwarts, she had expected Kakashi to leave as well!

And, obviously, he didn't.

What, weren't fourteen shinobi enough to protect Harry Potter? They had Kiba, Shino, and Hinata, one of Konoha's best tracking team of chuunins yet; two jounins, Neji and Kankurou; Tenten the weapon master, Naruto the... Naruto; Sasuke the Uchiha prodigy; Sakura, Tsunade's newest and most potentially powerful apprentice; Gaara, _the kazekage_; Kankurou and Temari, jounins and second-in-command of Sunagakure; Shikamaru the genius of Konoha; Ino, one of Konoha's top interrogators and spies, not to mention a very clever shinobi after long exposure to Shikamaru; and Jiraiya, the _legendary sannin himself_.

Kakashi was definitely an asset to this huge team, but seriously, how come they needed that many people in the Wizarding world?

And you couldn't honestly say that they were the only shinobi in that world. If Gaara didn't have a small group in that world along with him, she would glomp Ibiki. Of course, if that really were the case, she wouldn't really even poke Ibiki. But Kurenai was not going to believe that Gaara hadn't set up something in the other world.

She heard the clock strike eight and practically ambushed the unsuspecting gift-wrapped present with the ferocity of an annoyed girlfriend.

Opening the package, she found a summoning scroll—similar to the one that summoned the chuunins in the chuunin exam. She knew what was going to happen next...

Kurenai jumped back when she found herself staring at a familiar face(mask).

"K-Kakashi!" she said in surprise.

"K-Kurenai!" he said, imitating her shocked voice in a teasing manner. "H-h-hi!" He did his usual 'close-eyes-and-smile' look. "Don't tell me your students influenced you. I was under the impression that it was the teachers who taught the students, not the other way around."

"What are you doing here?" she asked him. "What about your mission?"

"It's Christmas," Kakashi said simply. "I didn't think about the time jumping from Britain to here, so you picked me up earlier than I expected. However..." He held up a bottle in his hands. "I managed to grab our gift before I was completely summoned."

"Our gift...?" she echoed in confusion.

"Ah, I forgot to mention this in the letter," Kakashi said, a sneaky gleam in his eye, "but Christmas is not only a time for families and couples, but also the time to give gifts to loved ones."

"I...don't have anything..." she said, slowly

"I know. We're sharing it!" Kakashi said, proudly brandishing the bottle in his hand. "Elf-made wine. Those elves live for _so_ long, these things are a fortune to buy. Luckily, you and I together are both worth a fortune. I did a few odd jobs with Madam Rosmerta for this."

"What kind of odd jobs?" Kurenai said suspiciously.

"Ah, nothing too big," he said, shrugging. "She made me dress like a waiter and sit outside. I think she may have been using me like some sort of public attraction. But that's not the important thing," he said to her.

"Then what is?"

"Tonight. And tonight, the important thing is you," Kakashi said.

((wow, is this fluff? ...this is pathetically short.))


	31. Chapter 31

Alright, people, I've got good news and I've got bad news. The bad news is that I've given up on editing the chapters for the time being. The good news, on the other hand, is this chapter. Finally got it out. Sorry about the long wait! 

I can't remember, but cadetfuhrer, my mother raised me fine, thank you very much. I treat others with respect when I am, and I was taught not to take dumb shit from some guy who I am guessing doesn't know his ass from his face, what with all the shit spewing from your mouth. I am too tired to argue with you and I can't really remember what I was going tos ay. Oh yeah, America and the freedom of speech. Yeah, you see, if you use THAT against ME, then I would like to mention that if you can talk freely to me, then I could talk freely to you, therefore my flame in the previous chapter was completely 'legal' or whatever you think yours is. Either way, people always use the right of free speech as an excuse to talk shit to other people. Why can't I use my right of free speech to talk back? Are you trying to say that you can use your rights and I cannot? That's called being egocentric. I can't remember what else I was going to say in response to your PM, but do shut up.

Hm... what else, what else...

Oh yeah, I got a message from a friend just a little while ago. Okay, if some of you didn't know, I started a new crossover called Stranded. I personally like it better than this story, actually. I focused more on the plotline in it, though it's less humor. Now, in January, Akatsuki210 wrote a story called Hataku Kakashi and the Goblet of Tears. The characters are different, the situation is slightly different, the moods and attitudes and the time spent in the other world are different. But the way that Kakashi came into the Wizarding World is definitely mine. My friend told me just today (okay, yesterday, technically) that Akatsuki may have copied that small part from my story. I was just wondering if anyone can help compare the two stories and figure out if I have any right to report User Abuse for plagiarism or am I unable to do anything?

Chapter 31: Getting a Clue

Having lost track of their dates, Harry and Ron walked outside in search of fresh air and found instead a rather odd scene, involving the Japanese students lying all about the ground with pained looks in their eyes.

"You guys have a hangover?" Ron asked Naruto with a bemused look. Many of the Japanese students were sprawled out idly on the ground, most with a focused expression on their face. Almost as if they were attempting to erase or block out something from their memory or imagination.

"No, _they_ are hung over," Naruto muttered, pointing to the left side of the lawn, whose occupants were groaning, clutching their heads, and in some cases, staggering about drunkenly. "_We_ seem to be suffering some sort of nightmare born from the depths," he said, referring to those on his side of the room, with haunted expressions, frozen in shock, on their faces, just sitting their dazed. "...Neji is unfortunate enough to be suffering from both," he said, pointing at Neji as the Hyuuga twitched about on the ground.

"Um... right," Harry said. "...What about Shino and his date?"

The two were staggering around aimlessly, reaching their arms out as they chased after invisible things.

"Uh... I'm not really sure what their doing," Naruto muttered. "And... I'm not going to ask."

"So um..." Harry said, pausing to watch Neji twitch at every sound, "...well, what's got you guys, um... all...twitching around...? On the ground...?"

"It's the most disgusting thing, actually," Naruto said. "Um... it started when most of us were out getting air and stuff... It was a bit too crowded inside for all our comforts... And, well... we overheard Hagrid and Maxime in the bushes..."

"Wait, you were in the bushes or Hagrid and Maxime were in the bushes?" Harry asked. "Because if it was Hagrid and Maxime, then I don't want to know—"

"It was us," Naruto said. "Well, we weren't _in_ them, but we were listening through them. And, well, it turns out that Hagrid's actually a half-giant and—"

"Blimey!" Ron said suddenly, with a shocked expression on his face. "A half-giant?!"

"Heeey!" Naruto said, annoyed that the redhead had cut him off. "Don't interr—"

"So what if Hagrid's a half-giant?" Harry said angrily to Ron and Naruto. "He's still Hagrid! Nothing's changed!"

"Well, that's not what I'm talking about anyw—"

"Well, I _know_ that," Ron said defensively, "but... it's just that... _blimey_, they're really violent, those giants..."

"_Will you two stop cutting me off and let me finish talk—_"

"YOU THREE SHUT UP!" Kiba growled at the top of his lungs, clawing up the snow and throwing it at their feet. The Inuzuka was crouching by a large bush, clutching his head.

"Wait, you didn't drink anything," Naruto said, puzzled. "Why are _you_ all 'no loudness' on us?"

"Bad mood," he said sulkily. "I was with Fleur—"

"Oh yeah, we _know_ that," the blond snickered.

"—and, well, we were in the mood and everything, but then her headmistress goes around shouting something about how she was insulted and has huge bones or something and then Fleur wasn't in the mood but I still was, but I didn't know she _wasn't_ in the mood so I still kept going and she _klonked_ me," he said in one breath.

"She _what_ you?"

"She klonked me. Upside the head with some summoned rock," Kiba said, still clutching his aching head. "...I _think_ it was a rock. Can't remember..."

"...Oh," Naruto said. He looked up at Sakura, Hinata, and Shikamaru. "Hey, wait, how come _you three_ are completely fine?" he asked them.

"We didn't drink anything," Shikamaru said. "Plus, we had to teach the academy students sex ed."

Sakura laughed at the stunned look on Naruto's face. "Believe me, after trying to explain _that_ to a whole bunch of ten-year-olds, Hagrid's parentage is _nothing_."

* * *

"Seeevie-poo!" Anko cried out, running back to Snape's quarters. 

Oh dear god no.

"You left early!" she said enthusiastically. "Are you trying to get back first so you can lock me out?"

"How ever did you know?" he said sarcastically, rubbing his arm absentmindedly. She stared at him with a smile on her face. He didn't like that look. "No," he said firmly.

"To torture a student while I'm not here to watch?" she asked, looking around the room as if there was a student hanging upside down from the ceiling.

"No."

"To stick something scary under my bed?"

"No."

"To contemplate the Dark Mark on your arm?"

"...What?" Severus looked up at her in surprise.

"Don't worry!" she said cheerfully. "I haven't been looking at you in the bathroom or while you've been changing or anything. There's not much to see—"

"Get out of my room," he said angrily.

"_Eh_? I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said, not looking sorry at all. Instead, she had this huge drunken grin plastered on her face. "I meant to say you look _very_, uh, nice! So, so pretty! Do I still have to leave now?"

"_Yes._"

"Aw, but I said you're pretty! Oh, are those boots for me?" she asked, pointing at a pair of new boots at the foot of his bed. "They're too girly for you, they're for me, right? Right?"

"Just take them and get out!" Severus said, finally snapping, waving his wand, forcing Anko out of the room, and locking the door.

"Ooow, Seeev! The door hit my face!" he heard her say.

He ignored her overbearing presence and lifted his sleeve to look at the Dark Mark on his forearm. How had Mitarashi known about it? He had been careful not to show it to anyone for all the thirteen years he had been working at Hogwarts. He knew that allowing that _girl_ to invade his personal space would destroy his privacy, but _no_, Dumbledore _had_ to "suggest" that the professor and assistant work with each other and smooth over their dramatic differences in personality.

And what the bloody hell did that old coot mean that they were 'more alike than he realized'? They were polar opposites! Complete dualities!

Of course, there _was_ the more secretive side to Mitarashi's past that even he, a self-proclaimed expert spy (because no sensible spy would rather _not_ be self-proclaimed), could not come near to understanding.

Now that he thought about it, if this was all just an act, then... then it would mean that Mitarashi was _really_ good. Leaving his seat, he quietly crept towards the door. He knew that even her sense of hearing seemed almost unearthly accurate.

Severus cracked open the door just barely enough to look outside so that he could see what she was doing out in his living room. The girl rarely went to her own bedroom until absolutely necessary. Looking outside, he spotted her in her usual seat—anywhere much too close to the fireplace. Only she was reading some book. He noticed that she was already wearing those boots he had bought.

"And you were suspecting that _I _was the Peeping Tom?" she said suddenly.

Caught red-handed, Severus Snape opened the door completely and walked over to her in curiosity.

"What is it that you're reading?"

"That book you gave me, of course," she replied casually. "One Thousand and One Wizard Cooking Techniques..." She paused and giggled. "Creative!" she said.

Crazy woman...

"You _honestly_ think so?"

"Well, it's like... you read it and think 'oh it's a wizard cook book', but you open it up and voila! Turns out it's _literally_ a book for cooking wizards!" She grinned. "Hm... though it's not all about cooking... What do you think, Sev—"

"Mitarashi, what the hell is wrong with you?" he said, cutting her off.

"You're asking _me_?" she said, raising her eyebrows. "Well... I suppose I was always a bit too obedient... No, wait, not obedient. _Gullible. _Never doubted anyone's words... Oh, and I also have awesome metabolism! Everything goes straight to my head so I always have enough energy to do anyth—!"

"That's not what I meant," he interrupted, looking a bit more annoyed than usual.

"...Well that's what you had asked," she responded, switching from her usual happy facade to a serious expression that could have matched his. "You asked and I answered: I trust bad people _much_ too easily. That's a problem, isn't it?"

"Are you implying that I am a dark wizard?" he asked her.

She grinned. "Who said it was you who I had trusted? Are you a _bad person_?" she said teasingly. "Guilty conscience, eh?"

Severus paused. She had been playing with her words again—making him make a fool out of himself. Not many could do that with his own words.

But Severus had already collected bits of the data that he was looking for. He now knew a bit more of just what kind of person his assistant was.

Anko Mitarashi. She was the type of person who would leave you the trails of bread crumbs. She won't tell a lie, and she'll usually skip around the whole truth, but she'll tell you just enough so that, once you collect enough information—if you were smart enough—you could collect the whole story. She was cocky, arrogant, and perhaps too dependent on another's ineptitude and too overconfident with her own cleverness.

She would allow him to see all the clues, whether he noticed them or not. She was teasing him, taunting him, making some sort of game out of his curiosity. There was always a person smug enough to give you answers that are true enough, but mean quite a different thing. Pleased by his or her own cleverness, he or she would become smug and arrogant and practically unbearable.

But sometimes, her actions and her stories just didn't make sense.

Were the clues just faulty? Was Anko Mitarashi that type of person? She wasn't exactly _smug_. That was definitely the wrong word for it. No... it was more like she was just _there_. Her presence would just be painfully obvious.

After almost four months of having her sleep next door, sharing the same living space, watching her and her strange antics, he had already come to the conclusion that she was hiding something large from him. He knew that she wasn't usually as silly as she claimed to be—as she _acted_.

Anko Mitarashi must have not known Severus as well as she believed. Because Severus Snape, the snarky potions master of Hogwarts, _refused_ to allow such a mystery to go unsolved. Dumbledore wanted him to spend more time with his new assistant?_ As if! _

But he _would_ find out more about his assistant, whether the old man liked it or not.

Anko snickered again. Not just because the guy in the book was turning into goo—a mix of liquefying organs in a sac of human skin—but because the potions master was finally truly taking the bait.

It was the younger shinobi's job to take care of Hogwarts and the boy. It was Kakashi-san's job to keep an eye on the younger shinobi. And it was her job to watch for any signs of her former teacher.

Tsunade actually hadn't wanted Anko to go on this mission.

_'It would be much better,' _Tsunade had told her, _'if a more experienced and less... attached jounin went.'_

Like Anko would _really_ allow someone else the pleasure of helping Konoha locate and apprehend the man who had wronged her!

Anko had known Tsunade for a short time while she was under the bastard's influence. His teaching, basically. And so, Tsunade knew just how personal it was for her. That was the reason Tsunade had argued so vehemently with Anko that she send someone else to do the job. But it was also the reason that Anko was able to convince Tsunade that she was the best for the task as well.

She had been the one to help the bastard escape the hands of Konoha's ANBU, whether she had done so on purpose or not. It was her duty to apprehend this criminal.

_'All I would do would be to collect information,' _Anko had said to Tsunade. _'I won't have any contact with...Orochimaru, but my presence at Hogwarts might actually help capture him. I want at least some part in this. Uchiha gets to go. Why can't I?'_

And so, eventually, Tsunade gave Anko the mission, making the tokubetsu jounin promise that, if she encountered the bastard, she would stay away.

Anko knew. Tsunade didn't want her to go back to her old ways—by the bastard's side.

She reassured Tsunade that she would _never_ side with the bastard. She didn't care whose side she was on, so long as it wasn't Orochimaru's.

That comment alone was hardly comforting to Tsunade, but the hokage made no comment. Anko was not a fool. She'd stay out of harm's way. So long as it wasn't Orochimaru causing the harm.

Anko had first done her research on all members of the Hogwarts staff, and was pleased to find that Severus Snape—according to their client—had once been a former Death Eater for Lord Voldemort.

That was the perfect place to start.

Rumor said that Voldemort had allied himself with a mysterious group. It had almost been undeniable that this group was most likely the Sound. Anko knew for a fact that Voldemort must have had a way of calling his Death Eaters without arousing suspicion, yet still using instantaneous methods of communication.

An owl was too slow and obvious if one was to receive and owl from the dark lord. Too easily traced.

Using some sort of communication parchment would be the most likely method of communication, but it was much too common. Plus, it would be hard to catch the owner's attention if it didn't make a sound or vibrate or do anything. But if it did sound or move when in use, then it would be much too obvious.

It took some time for Anko to realize that there was one surefire way to alert one's underlings without getting caught.

That infamous Dark Mark.

At first thought, one would think it merely being a way of identifying a Death Eater. That way, two Death Eaters would be able to avoid hexing the living daylights out of each other because they would think that the other was an enemy.

Identification.

Of course, it that was all there was to the Dark Mark, then Lord Voldemort must have been a complete fool, since because a Death Eater would be able to tell if another person was a Death Eater, then an ordinary wizard on the side of the 'Light' could tell that he or she was a Death Eater as well. There _must_ have been another purpose for that mark.

To alert others when he wished for their presence.

Of course, Anko's suspicions were completely based on rumors. Bringing up the topic of Death Eaters were hardly a conversation starter, so it was a bit difficult for her to gain solid information regarding them.

And so, armed with resolution based on groundless rumors, Anko pursued this man, Severus Snape—the only Death Eater she had known and been aware of.

Until tonight.

It had been pure luck that night that she had found out. Severus had managed to finally escape her clutches only a little more than an hour earlier. A miraculous phenomenon—a mere wizard escaping the watchful eye of a seasoned kunoichi. And then, the moment that Anko had managed to pinpoint his location, in the winding path of rosebushes off the dance floor, she had overheard him speaking to Igor Karkaroff, the headmaster of Durmstrang.

"_...I don't see what the there is to fuss about, Igor,"_ she heard Severus say. Anko watched from a tree, nestled amongst a swarm of multicolored fairies. She ignored the Ravenclaw and the Hufflepuff in the bushes. Normally, she'd jump down on them and enjoy scaring the living daylights out of them, but this conversation was much more important than her personal amusement.

"_Severus!"_ Karkaroff hissed in a low voice, sounding anxious and panicked. Anko took note that they were on first name terms, something Anko had not managed after about three months with Snape. _"You cannot pretend this isn't happening! It's been getting clearer and clearer for months. I am becoming seriously concerned, I can't deny it—"_

"_Then flee," _Snape had replied curtly, with that snarky attitude that Anko cherished so much. Sarcasm galore! _"Flee—I will make your excuses. I, however, am remaining at Hogwarts."_

Thinking about it now, with time and peace in front of the fireplace, she mused about these new developments. It was interesting. She liked it. Something new and much more pleasant to dwell on. Why wouldn't he flee Hogwarts? What was so dangerous that they would have to run away in the first place?

Anko grinned, flipping another page in Severus's book. She loved solving things, and this mystery surrounding the connection between Igor Karkaroff and Severus Snape was just _too_ enticing to let go. Things like this gave her a chance to express the creativity she had. Like a detective!

She knew his type. He was nosy. He was a spy. He wasn't the type to let things go. He was perfect.

He and Anko now knew each other rather well. Whether or not Snape was willing to admit it, Anko knew for a fact that they were rather alike in attitude, though their techniques for hiding it were completely opposite, at least. Neither backed down from a challenge, and, at the moment, both seemed stubborn to discover the other's secrets.

_'The difference is...'_ she pondered, rubbing her chin just below her lips like she always did when deep in serious thought, _'...that _I _know much more about _him _than _he _does about _me

He was curious about her. For his type, once his curiosity was piqued, nothing would stop him from pursuing the object of his attention. In this case, her.

She knew what kind of person Snape was. Severus Snape. He's like a dog. If you run, he'll follow. If you leave behind a scent, a clue, he'll follow upon that clue and continue hounding after you. Sometimes, if you manage the right spell, he'll even foam at the mouth.

By allowing the man to go looking into her past, she could manage to create her own window of opportunity. While _he_ might find out more about her_ past_, _she_ would find out more about Lord _Voldemort_. And, if lucky, she'd finally be able to complete her self-appointed mission:

To kill Orochimaru.

* * *

Severus Snape woke up to someone screaming in the next room. He immediately sat up and felt sorely tempted to just cast a Silencing spell over his room so that every sound that Mitarashi made would be muted completely. Nevertheless, after a few moments, he realized that she hadn't stopped and it probably _wasn't_ some roach or 'nasty insect' in her room. 

Sighing he got up, walked through the hallway and, though he was tempted to blast the damned door down), he carefully opened it.

Last time he intruded on her personal space, he ended up with an eyeful of Mitarashi and, later, a black eye.

Thank the gods for bruise balms, Severus didn't know _what_ he'd do if he had been forced to go to Poppy for a quick heal or, even worse, if he had to go to class with a black eye.

Seeing Mitarashi thrashing in her sleep, the potions master growled to himself, waved his wand, and doused her in cold water, still remaining a respectful distance away, wary of possibly retributions.

Mitarashi sputtered, thrashed some more, and fell on the ground, almost as if she had planned it all out for some comedy routine. However, she immediately got back to her feet with extremely uncharacteristic hatred written all over her face.

"What was _that_ for?" she hissed.

"Well, you had some sort of night terror and I just decided that, since you weren't going to stop screaming and I needed my sleep, I'd wake you up. Bad dream?"

"One that I needed," she muttered, rubbing the back of her collarbone sorely.

"What—?" Severus was going to ask her what she meant by that when he spotted something that, at the moment, seemed much more surprising. "_Is that a hickey_?"

"What?" Mitarashi looked at him surprised.

He grabbed her hand and pulled it away, looking at a dark spot, it's form barely visible in the darkness.

He immediately mentally went through all possible suspects.

Argus Filch, Albus Dumbledore, Filius Flitwick, Rubeus Hagrid, Alastor Moody, and himself.

Narrowing it down to those within her interests: zero.

Narrowing it down to those within her age group: negative zero.

Severus Snape frowned even more than usual.

...Only Mitarashi would manage to get a negative zero.

Maybe the woman who gave her the hickey was a woman? Mitarashi didn't _seem_ interested in any of the women in the staff. She hadn't met the judges long enough gain any attachment to them. Plus, none of the judges were those kind of people.

Then again, there was that white haired man, Jiraiya, whom nobody knew about. He _did_ sometimes have some sort of a lecherous look on his face while he wrote something on a long piece of parchment though.

...No way.

Kakashi was actually around her age. Plus, they were associated with each other in the past, considering the fact that they were from the same village. But Kakashi was in love with Kurenai. ...Kurenai, who Severus assumed had some sort of attachment to Asuma.

...Love triangle aside, no bloody way.

A student!

"Snape, you've been off in your own world for a whole minute now."

He turned his attention back on her. "Mitarashi, have you been having an illegitimate relationship with a student here at Hogwarts?" he asked her sharply.

"_What?_" she yelped. "No! You're nasty! The oldest student here is ten years younger than me! I'm twenty-seven for goodness sake! What, do you think I'm some sort of a pedophile?"

"Then what is that?" he asked, pointing accusingly at the mark on her throat. "_Lumos_. Oh."

"Yes, '_oh_'. It's a—"

"Tattoo?"

"Birthmark!" they said at the same time. She paused. "Wait, yeah..." she said, shaking her head. "It's a tattoo." She laughed, though it sounded forced and strained. "My mistake..."

There was something entirely suspicious about the manner at which she spoke and rubbed the mark.

"Still... you're _nasty_," she said, though now she was just trying to contain her laughter at Severus's expense. "And I'm not, just so you know. I am _so_ not into pedophilia."

"I suppose I should be glad," Severus said dryly, attempting to recollect the shattered pieces of what had once been his composure.

After a moment of laughing at his embarrassment and mistake, she smiled. "Alright, I'm going to go to sleep now."

"Oh... right," Severus said, turning around. How awkward. He paused at the doorway, remembering just why he had come in the first place. "What did you dream about anyway?" he asked her.

"Huh?" Mitarashi looked momentarily stunned by the question. "Um... well.. nothing really. It's... well," she coughed, "it was just a dream..." she said in a shaky voice. Wait... she was serious again. The perfect time to at least try and get some solid answers out of her.

"...What happened?" he asked her. He noticed a brief flicker when their eyes met.

"You... you were _singing_," she said. "You sang 'We Are Family'. That's some Muggle song... And it was _horrible_."

Did he just think earlier that she was serious again? No. No, she _wasn't_ being serious.

Unless, of course, she was pulling an Anko. Again.

Violently slamming the door shut, Severus returned to his bedroom, annoyed that Mitarashi was, as usual, hiding something from him.

* * *

With Severus's dramatic exit, which involved a lot of door slamming, Anko yipped and jumped back into her bed, bouncing slightly before allowing herself to settle down. 

Perfect-o!

Severus 'saw through it all'! Or so he thought.

Operation Continue Bait the Potions Master was a success!

* * *

"That boy is slow," Ino announced to her friends, leaning back as Sasuke rubbed her temples. 

"What do you mean by that?" Sakura asked. "I've been teaching him the basics of speed striking, and after that, I'm teaching him how to fall."

Everyone looked at Sakura. "...You are the most patient person I've ever met," Kankurou said.

"Then you don't know her personally," Naruto snickered. "But yeah, she's the best when it comes to teaching him the bas—"

"That's not what I was talking about!" Ino said indignantly. "I go through all the trouble of getting him a date for the Yule Ball! Ginny! The cutesy girl in the third year! And she's a looker too! If you don't think so now, look her up in a few years! I know these things! She's gonna be the popular girl who's got everyone's eye! And then do you know what Harry does? The idiot completely _ignores_ her! You can't _do_ that!"

"Ino," Sasuke said patiently. "Maybe Harry just doesn't like Ginny that way."

"But they're perfect together!" she protested.

"But you can't force two people to—"

"_They are perfect for each other_," Ino said with a gleam in her eye. "And yes. I can force them together if I want to."

Sasuke looked at Shikamaru, who shrugged lazily. "Actually, she's telling the truth," he said. "The feeling isn't permanent though."

"Oh." Sasuke looked rather surprised. And a bit edgy.

"So," Shikamaru said, looking around. "Anything new to bring up?"

"Harry is jealous of Cedric," Ino added.

"Anything _significant_?"

"We need to figure out how to give our partners the egg clue," Neji said. "We can't all be the ones to tell our partners. We each need a way of getting them to figure it out by themselves. Only two out of the five of us may figure it out on our own, to keep it realistic. We aren't really allowed to work together."

"Kankurou has to be one of them," Temari commented.

"Hey, playing favorites isn't allowed," Kiba joked. "Besides, you left Gaara out. Isn't Gaara the better brother?"

"Kankurou is the only one without a partner, therefore he has to be one to figure it out by himself anyway," Gaara said slowly. "That's one down, four to go."

Shikamaru frowned. "Well, Fleur, Viktor, Cedric, and Harry..."

"I've got an idea," Ino said. "I know." She smiled, covering her face slightly, a habit she had whenever she had managed to concoct a plan almost comparable to one of Shikamaru's. "Madame Maxime and Karkaroff are particularly biased towards their own champions. I'm thinking it won't be suspicious if they gave their champions a bit of a hint as to how to solve the clue of the egg..."

"Dumbledore is pretty even-minded about our own champions," Tenten commented. "What about Harry and Cedric? Maybe Sasuke and Naruto could say that they figured it out?"

"I thought about it," Ino said, "and having two champions figure it out _would_ sound ordinary, but then we'd have to choose between Cedric and Harry. Having Naruto, Sasuke, and Kankurou all figure it out on their own seems a bit too much. We can't let anyone know that all of _us_ are working on it together, or else we might get blamed for cheating. Remember, this is a competition between you guys, and usually people in competition don't work together to win something in which there is only enough of a reward for one person.

"Therefore, only Kankurou will be the one to figure it out. I'll take over a teacher and drop a hint to Cedric so—"

"What about Harry?" Naruto said.

"Don't forget," Ino said. "Harry tipped Cedric off about the dragons. Cedric is _obligated_ to do a favor in return."

"Not everyone pays attention to their obligations," Kiba said.

"Cedric does. He's got that honor thing going on. He _will_ help Harry. And, of course, if he doesn't, I'll just take over his body and I tell Harry himself. Then again, we all know that Harry can keep a secret. _We _could just be the ones to tell him and then make sure he doesn't let anyone know that all of the champions' partners are working together."

"That's true," the Inuzuka mused.

"Anything else?" Shikamaru added.

"One more thing," Sakura said. She gave Neji a nervous glance, and the Hyuuga suddenly looked rather sullen.

"What is it?"

"During the first task, when Neji fell, it wasn't because he tripped over his own two feet," Sakura said. "Neji and I thought about it and have come to the conclusion that it was some sort of spell."

They all looked at Neji.

"A trip jinx?" Shino said.

"No. I'm_ pretty sure _it was a memory charm, and though I can be wrong, it's not likely," Sakura said. "Neji knew something, and someone didn't want him to remember it. I'm thinking that Neji was onto someone, but then someone found out and decided to keep Neji quiet by erasing his memory of Moody."

"Why Moody?" Naruto asked.

"Alastor Moody was one of the ministry's best aurors in history. He's even listed in our books. Not that anyone actually reads Binns' stuff... But someone probably didn't want Neji telling Mad-Eye about it. They actually ended up wiping all memories of Moody himself."

"Well, this complicates things," Sasuke said.

They had all agreed earlier that they would allow the events to play out and merely do their best to keep Harry safe in the meantime. However, with the reappearance of evidence for this new conspiracy... it was rather tempting to figure out who the perpetrator was as soon as possible.

"Do any of us want to reopen this case?" Shikamaru asked. "A new clue might help us find out who's got it for Harry before something big and bad jumps out at our face. It would certainly be easier for us if we find out what's going on right now rather than holding Harry out as bait for the enemy. After all, the enemy might actually make it out with the bait, and then there goes the person we were supposed to protect. Still, it might end up being a lost cause and be a waste of time."

"Why don't you restart your project?" Sakura asked Shikamaru and Ino. "You know, where you two had a huge list of names?"

"We can't do it," Shikamaru said. "I've been a bit busy lately. Both of us."

"Doing what?"

"Work."

They waited for him to elaborate when they realized that that was all Shikamaru and Ino were going to say about what they had been doing recently.

"Alright then," Sakura said, taking charge of the meeting. "Hinata and Neji will deal with determining possible suspects, and I'll start researching to find if there is any way to reverse a Memory Charm. Anyone is free to help if they have any time or information to share."

-

((A/N: The next few short passages are spaced apart by maybe a few days and stuff. The shinobi didn't want it to seem too suspicious that their headmasters both gave out the clues on the same day near the same time.))

Fleur Delacour was sitting idly in the carriage, thinking about the events that took place at the Yule Ball. It had been perfectly fine before. Kiba was a sweet boy. Young, stupid, and a bit smelly, but fine otherwise. They had been... having a perfectly good time when her headmistress had shouted something suddenly about bones.

'Oh dear... she was using the big bones excuse again...' Fleur thought to herself, suddenly concerned for the motherly half-giant headmistress.

Feeling rather panicked and alert, something happened and she ended up hexing the mind out of Kiba Inuzuka. The poor boy. Fleur had been feeling quite stressed out that evening and wasn't really paying attention to the spell she cast on Kiba to keep him from talking over Madame Maxime's private conversation with that possible fellow half-giant friend of hers. She hadn't _meant_ to do anything so drastic to her date, but things got out of hand and she really did want to make sure that Madame Maxime didn't say anything she would come to regret.

Fleur sighed. She hoped Kiba would still allow her to play with Akamaru. It was so rare that she find an animal with such soft fur that she wasn't wearing.

Speaking of rarities, it seemed that she had _completely_ missed her chance with that lovely Neji Hyuuga. What a pity. He had such marvelous eyes. She often wondered if he had bad vision. Pale eyes didn't necessarily mean that the owner was blind. Wizards often changed the colors of their eyes, though it was an expensive potion that one had to take every morning.

But, when she had innocently commented on how much money he must have had to have maintained his pale eyes for several weeks and perhaps even months, he mentioned a Hyuuga branch treasury in which he was allowed to draw money from once he was twenty. Which meant that he was living on his own savings for the time being—money that he had made himself.

Neji had said that the Hyuuga clan was prestigious and would never allow even 'his side of the family' to look anything less than decent, and he was always given top-of-the-line equipment and was allowed to have almost anything he wanted (within reasonable boundaries, of course), but in his opinion, to rely on this wonderful generosity felt like a disgrace.

Economic status aside, this still meant that he had never used potions to change the colors of his eyes. They weren't silver like the famed Ollivander eyes, but they were more of a creamy shade of white and sometimes gray. There was something special about his eyes. He mentioned something once, when they had flirted—something that Neji seemed rather uncomfortable with, considering it was only days after his break up with that Chinese girl—that he would 'always keep an eye on her, as he couldn't allow someone as beautiful to be in harm's way'.

Fleur knew she was beautiful. There was no denying it. But there had been something about that comment that... caught her attention. Did he mean that literally? He _did _always appear at the most convenient times. Never when she had been busy, always in her free time...

Outside of the carriage that served as the seventh year Beauxbatons dormitory, she heard the heavy footsteps that alerted her to her headmistress's footsteps.

"Fleyooa? Fleyua?"

...Eh?

Fleur stuck her head out of the chilly window to look at Madame Maxime, who was standing outside and, for some odd reason, looked rather off-balance in her own body. God forbid that woman fall. She might take down the carriage with her.

_And what on earth was wrong with her accent_?

"Fleua?"

"Madame Maxime? What happened to your accent?" Fleur asked her headmistress in confusion.

The giant of the woman stared at her for a moment. "Wot _eva_ do you meen?" she asked. "Zis _ees_ my assent."

Fleur stared at Madame Maxime long and hard. It _looked_ like her... And she hoped to dear god that the woman wasn't drunk or anything. To get a woman her size drunk on alcohol would probably cost an entire school year's worth of money.

"_Okay_," Fleur said, nodding with a huge fake smile on her face.

"Ai joss won't-ed to say..."

"Wait," Fleur said suspiciously. "Why don't you just speak normally? Zere is no 'Ogwarts student 'ere. No one unable to understand our language."

Madame Maxime gaped at her. "Um... okay..." The half-giantess took a deep breath. "_Abra el huevo submarino_!" (Spanish: Open the egg underwater)

"_Qu'avez-vous dit? Cela était espagnol..._" (French: What did you say? That was Spanish...)

Madame Maxime smiled at her. And then ran like hell.

"_Ah, Madame Maxime_!"

Fleur opened the door and stumbled out after her headmistress into that Forbidden Forest. It wasn't a long chase when Fleur saw Madame Maxime collapse.

"_Madame Maxime_!" Fleur called.

"_Nn...Le quel est? Qu'est-il arrivé?_" (French: What is it? What happened?)

Fleur stared at Madame Maxime strangely. "I... I saw you collapse outside," she said slowly. "That was all..."

* * *

Ino reentered her body, to find everyone either scolding her or laughing at her. 

"_Spanish_, Ino?" Naruto snickered. "You spoke to a _French _girl in _Spanish_?"

"Ino..." Shikamaru said, sighing and rubbing his forehead.

"_What_?" the blond said angrily. "What did you _expect_ me to do? Miraculously learn to speak French?"

"_Yes_," he said, much to Ino's chagrin. "If you hadn't consciously thought about the words and the language and just _relaxed_, Dumbledore's translator would have done the work for you. Your words would have just translated into whatever Fleur language was expecting..."

Ino stared at Shikamaru, her mouth agape.

"..._Oh_."

* * *

Viktor Krum was sitting idly in one of the ship's many cabins with the few people at school who were able to tolerate him _and_ speak the same language. Durmstrang accepted purebloods of only a certain number of generations from all over the world. It was a small school, considering how old one's lineage must be to be allowed entry. Most students, at least, spoke English, it being a universal language. 

Only he, Ian Poliakoff, and Omurtag Tolga out of all twelve of-age Durmstrang students were taking a break in this room to discuss their time at the Yule Ball.

"_I don't think her friend liked me_," Viktor said in his usual sullen voice.

"_Does it matter?_" Omurtag said derisively. "_You don't have to like the mudblood or her friends._"

"_Leave him alone. It's like seeing a new species, right, Krum? Looks new. And exotic. And different._"

"_Not to mention, she has a brain and no interest in quidditch_," he mumbled, drinking this hot 'butterbeer'. He didn't really like the way Poliakoff had referred to her like an animal, but it was nice having him on his side.

"_Yeah!_" Poliakoff said enthusiastically. "_And plus, at least she look good last night! Your date look like you step on her face!_"

"_She just got out of a quidditch accident, leave her alone!_" Tolga protested. Poliakoff laughed loudly when Karkaroff stuck his head inside the cabin. All was silent as the students stared at the teacher.

"_Viktor_," Karkaroff said fluently. "_A word if you please?_"

They continued to stare for a moment until Karkaroff cleared his throat loudly.

"_Oh, um... yes sir,_" Viktor said, getting up to go outside. Karkaroff nodded and closed the door on Viktor as the quidditch player pulled a heavy fur coat over his shoulders, since it was rather chilly outside. Only a few moments later, Viktor opened the door to see Karkaroff with his sleeve pulled down, staring at something dark on his forearm in fascination.

"_Ahem_."

"_Oh, hello_," Karkaroff said, pulling his sleeve back up.

It was snowing outside, Viktor noticed. A bit chilly, but it was nothing much, compared to home.

"_Um... I have a bit of advice for you,_" Karkaroff said, Viktor looked at him suspiciously.

"_You aren't supposed to help us with the egg,_" Viktor said.

"_Yes, but... what would your parents think if you did not win the tournament? That you lost to a girl? A boy younger than you? A pretty-boy?_"

"_My parents are glad that I had even participated in the first place,_" Viktor said coldly. "_And they are also satisfied by my skills in sports. That alone is enough for them._"

Karkaroff sighed, made a disgusted face, though it seemed to be directed at his own teeth (which was rather odd, since he had never cared about oral hygiene before). Karkaroff pulled out his wand, and Viktor immediately tensed. Their headmaster was rude, tactless, unhygienic, dirty, and useless in anything that did not involve the Dark Arts, but he wouldn't attack his own student. Especially if he was famous.

"_Accio egg_," Karkaroff said, and the egg flew through the cabin door, creating an egg-shaped hole in the door. "_...Oops._" He didn't look too sorry about it though. He lifted the latch on the egg, and it snapped open. Viktor immediately dropped down and covered his ears. Karkaroff, who was closest and was still holding the egg, winced, but didn't hesitate to toss it into the cold and dark waters below them. The sound disappeared, replaced by a low hum, and Viktor immediately ran to the side of the ship to stare in fascination at the egg that now emitted a sound much more pleasant and pleasing to the ear.

Down below, the egg bubbled gold bubbles, staying afloat only a few feet below the surface of the water. He could hear the faint sound of a singing woman. Odd.

"_Now_," Karkaroff said. Viktor looked up at him, now curious as to what the man had to say. "_Fetch._"

"What?" Viktor said incredulously. "_The water must be freezing! It's snowing!_"

"_Well then... I suggest you should use a warming charm, shouldn't you?_"

This was completely unlike Karkaroff. Since when was he indifferent to the world-renowned Viktor Krum.

Needless to say, this was one of the few times that Viktor would have preferred the special star treatment to the needless flattery and toadying. He didn't look forward to diving in the cold waters, where rumors of a giant squid weren't quite just rumors.

Nevertheless, Viktor removed the fur coat and cast a Warming charm on himself. He noticed a pile of dirt in the corner of the boat, even though students had swept just recently and magic usually repelled it.

_Sand_.

"By the way..." Viktor said slowly, speaking in English. He was glad for the warming spell. He'd probably be _freezing_ at this time. "...I don't think you speak Bulgarian, Karkaroff."

The 'headmaster' stared at the quidditch player for a moment with a surprised expression written all over his face.

"_Shimatta_..." 'Karkaroff' muttered under his breath.

Viktor didn't know what shmata meant, but he was sure it wasn't even English, let alone Bulgarian. The headmaster then rubbed his forehead and sighed, looking as if he was about to pass out and staggered slightly.

But not before shoving Viktor off the side of the ship and into the icy waters.

...Viktor was _very_ glad for the warming spell.

* * *

"Hey," Gaara said to Ino, sitting next to Sakura. Ugh, he probably told her about what happened! 

"So," Sakura said brightly, with a grin on her face. He _definitely_ told her about what happened! "How'd it go...—?"

"Not. A. Word." Ino stomped out of the Great Hall, red in the face as she heard all of the others laughing at her.

* * *

"Oh my god!" Hermione said, looking at the surly Bulgarian as he stomped to the shore, golden egg now shut and cradled in his arms, after a short swim in an icy lake. "What happened? Aren't you freezing?" 

"What were you doing here in the first place?" Viktor asked his Yule Ball date, and now possibly girlfriend. She already had a towel ready. Did she _know_ this was going to happen?

"Ino and Gaara came to me just a few minutes ago!" Hermione said worriedly. "And Ino said that I should come by with a warm towel! And now I'm really glad! Aren't you freezing?"

Viktor stared at her in disbelief. It wasn't Hermione that had surprised him. Sure, her coincidental appearance at the shore of the lake had caught him off guard, but...

"Yes," he said, blowing air on his hands as if to heat them up. He hid his small smile as a concerned Hermione threw the blanket over his shoulders and hugged him close.

He would have to thank Gaara for the clue later. And Ino too.

* * *

"Alright, alright, we've got one and a half more champions to go," Shikamaru said. "We already screwed up on two of them—" 

"I _said_ I'm _sorry_," Ino said, going red in the face.

"Not your fault. Anyway, let's try to get to Cedric without screwing everything up anyway, right? The tournament is in a little less than two months. We need to figure out our strategies for collecting the... items, and get your partners to figure out the puzzle by themselves."

"So, who's body are we taking over now?" Naruto asked with mock casualness.

"My first choice would have been Snape," Ino said. "I thought that no one would care if he got in trouble for helping out a student. But it turns out, I spoke to Anko, and she's trying to get some valuable information out of him. Besides, I tried to take over his mind once, and it felt like I ran into a brick wall. I had a headache for days. So, anyway, next would be Moody," she said. "All students have his class, so hinting it to him after classes would be a bit easier. Cedric's schedule for today is: Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Potions, and then Defense Against Dark Arts, which will be starting in about fifteen minutes after this break."

"Oh, well we have History of Magic next, so I guess you could always blow off Binns' class," Naruto said. "It's not as if we learn anything in there. Oh, except for the fact that in 1378, nothing happened."

"I'll tell him," Ino said, nodding. "Right after class."

* * *

Every day was a fine day for Cedric. Why? Because he was Cedric Diggory—most popular guy at Hogwarts, most handsome, most likely to succeed and got a position up high in the ministry, and voted one of the top three most likely not to get killed in the Triwizard Tournament. ...Of course, considering the fact that there were only four main champions (five if you include Kankurou), it wasn't much to brag about. 

The prefects bathroom was a great deal cleaner than the other bathrooms. There were only one Head girl, one head boy, and a girl-boy pair of prefects for each house and year past fourth. In total, there were twenty-six students with the privilege of using the prefects bathroom. In comparison to bathroom which had six hundred students using it, these private showers were a blessing. With the low number of people actually using the the prefects' baths, he never really had any trouble running into other students.

In any case, the chamber pots here were absolutely _wonderful_.

And clean.

"Pine fresh," Cedric said to the door. It creaked open and he walked into the room.

Heading towards the toilets, he went to the first unlocked stall, opened it, and screamed.

"AAAH—!"

"_Quiet_, you," Mad-Eye Moody said, holding Cedric by the back of his scarf before the boy could run away.

Cedric turned around to face the teacher. "...I hope you washed your hands," he said meekly.

"That's not the point," Moody said.

Oh dear Merlin.

"I suppose you've been having a bit of a hard time with that egg?" the kooky Defense Against the Dark Arts professor asked.

"You've been waiting for me in the prefect's bathroom just so you could ask me _that_?" Cedric said, his eye wide in surprise. "How'd you kn—?"

"Every Wednesday at three-fifteen during your break between Potions and Defense Against Dark Arts you go to the bathroom at the first unused stall closest to you."

"...Do I want to know how you figured that out?" Cedric said uncertainly.

"No."

"Okay," he said nodding. "Well... I'll be going now—"

"Not so fast, Diggory," Moody said, grabbing his arm..

Oh curse it, the freaky professor wasn't going to leave him alone. "The egg. You haven't solved it."

"Yes, sir, we've established that."

"Stick it underwater and listen to it."

"What?"

"Just do it when you're alone," Moody said. He hobbled past Cedric on his peg leg and left the bathroom.

Cedric stared after the man, lost for words. He immediately went for the sink, vehemently scrubbed every inch that man had touched—his scarf and his arm—and quickly left the bathroom.

He didn't need to use the bathroom anymore.

Hurrying to his next class—which happened to be Defense Against Dark Arts with Professor Moody—Cedric paused to think. Why was Moody helping him?

Was he helping Harry?

Ordinarily, he wouldn't have bothered to care whether Harry received help or not, but the Boy-Who-Lived had helped all other champions. Did Fleur and Viktor get the same kind of help from their headmaster? Probably. Both had previously mentioned that their headmasters would do anything to increase the fame and popularity or their respective schools.

But Harry might not have gotten anything at all. And he had helped Cedric with the first task, right? It may not have been the smartest thing to do, giving information to your one-sided rival—'one-sided' because Harry didn't seem to think of it as a competition at all and more like something he'd have to get through in one piece—but it would be dishonorable and rude not to.

Harry helped him, and Cedric would help Harry out. Their debts would be paid and he wouldn't owe him anything at all.

Cedric set his books down in Professor Moody's class, now warily watching every direction that man pointed his eye in. They were learning advanced spells for the Defense Against the Dark Arts, but that part of the class was not the most memorable.

Or suspicious.

It was two hours later after class was coming to an end that Moody stopped in mid-sentence and allowed the students a break from his lecture.

"Diggory, come here," he said as he returned heavily to his seat.

Cedric hesitantly approached Moody. "Yes, sir?"

"I just wanted to give you a bit of a hint for the tournament," he said in a low voice so other students wouldn't hear. Was he going to explain himself _now_? "Just stick the egg under water. You'll hear them sing—"

"I know, sir," Cedric said."You told me this already."

Moody paused. "I did?"

"_Yes_," Cedric said emphatically. "You did. Just before class started, remember?"

Moody stared at him, his real eye rather wide with surprise. "Oh.. .um, yes, I had forgotten. Ur...it... it must have been some dark spell! Someone made me forget!" he said, unconvincingly to a now suspicious Cedric.

"...Well, back to your seat," Moody said.

Cedric vaguely wondered, since when had Moody had a tinge of an oriental accent? The bell rang before Cedric could finish thinking. He gathered his books and belongings and left the last class of the day. He couldn't tell Fleur and Viktor his suspicions. If he did so, Mad-Eye would probably get into trouble for dropping him hints.

They probably wouldn't tell him either, though.

After determining whether this clue about the egg was for real, he would see if Harry, at least, knew about how to solve this egg.

* * *

Harry Potter was, as usual, trying to walk through the hallways as quickly as possible. People all over would stare at him as if he were some sort of alien. Some supported him, and others continued to loath him from the bottom of their hearts. He didn't _blame_ them, but... it was four months already! He just wished they'd _get over it_. Thankfully, some had. 

But still, Harry was still getting more attention than he preferred—

Someone pulled Harry out of the hallway and straight into an empty classroom. Dammit, those Slytherins were trying to jump him again!

Luckily, those lessons Sakura had been giving him had been paying off, which became more apparent with each scuffle with the Slytherins—which kept on becoming shorter and shorter, and easier for Harry.

"Gah!"

Harry swung at the person in front of him, who managed to duck below his fist. Harry was about to kick the offender when he recognized the person's voice.

"Harry, Harry, stop trying to kill me!" That Damn Pretty-Boy Diggory said.

...Harry was sorely tempted to continue his assault on his rival for the tournament and Cho, but decided against it.

"Sorry," he mumbled, not really meaning it. "What did you want?"

"Just... asking you about the egg—"

"We can't consult each other about the tournament," Harry said immediately.

"I know, I know," Cedric said, "but... well... I was just wondering just how far along you had gotten with it? The clue, I mean?"

Harry resisted the urge to say he already solved the whole thing. "Far enough."

In other words, not at all.

"Look, um... I realize I never really thanked you properly for tipping me off about those dragons," he said.

"Forget about it," Harry said. "I'm sure you would have done the same for me."

Plus, it was Naruto who made him do it in the first place.

"Exactly," Cedric said. "Just... returning the favor. On the fifth floor... the fourth door to the left of the statue of Boris the Bewildered, you know that? He's got his gloves on the wrong hands, looking kind of confused... you know about it, right? The entrance to the prefects' bathroom is the fourth door to the left after him. The password is 'pine fresh'. It... it's not a bad place for a bath..."

Harry really didn't like the way this conversation was going, but listened anyway.

"Anyway," Cedric said, sticking his head out of the classroom warily. "I've got to go before Moody starts looking at me."

The Hufflepuff shuddered as his own thoughts and swiftly left the classroom. Harry stared after him, still unable to speak from the shock.

"What's wrong?" Naruto said privately to Harry once they had returned to the Gryffindor dormitories later that night.

"Um... Cedric... he, um..."

Naruto raised an eyebrow, waiting for Harry to finish the sentence.

"_I think he was hitting on me_."

* * *

"Wait... so what happened exactly?" Hinata asked, not completely sure about what had happened between Cedric and Harry. 

"Okay," Shikamaru said, taking everyone's attention. "Ino possessed Madame Maxime and told the French girl, in _Spanish_, to open the egg underwater. Neji, did she get the clue?"

The Hyuuga nodded. "She told me that the screeching sound was a riddle underwater and she recited it to me."

"Alright, and then, a few days later, we had Ino possess Karkaroff and tell Viktor, in _proper Bulgarian_ even though the _real _Karkaroff did not know it, to jump into the lake. He heard the clue, right?"

"Yes," Gaara confirmed.

"Okay. Now for Cedric..." Shikamaru said. "Ino? Tell us what happened."

"The embarrassment was nothing in comparison to when I possessed Maxime and then Karkaroff and spoke in the wrong language, but..." Ino paused. "I spoke with Cedric about the clue. He said that Moody told him about it earlier that day. I pretended that I had just forgotten and then went on about how someone casted a dark spell over me, but I don't think he believed me..."

Ino looked at her teammate and waited for a reaction and a guess as to what had just happened here.

Shikamaru frowned and mulled it over. After a long moment of thinking, he looked up suddenly with his best answer in mind.

"...Moody's trying to help Harry," he said to them.

"Wait a minute, how'd you get _that_ out of Moody giving _Cedric_ the clue?" Sasuke said skeptically.

"I can't tell for sure," the genius said. "But I've been suspecting that Moody had always known that we were helping out each other. He may have even known that Naruto and Harry had helped the other champions with the dragon clue. He may have come to a similar conclusion as to ours and figured out that Cedric would tell Harry out of goodwill," he said. "Just _maybe_. Ino, later when you are in your spare time, I want you to take over and try to read Moody's memories if you can. I want to find out what his intentions are exactly. We don't know whether he's trying to take matters into his own hands by helping Harry until the tournament is over or maybe he has some other intention in mind."

"Alright," Ino said with a nod.

"So, um, what about Cedric... liking Harry?" Hinata said, unsure. "That's what Naruto said, right?"

"Right. We're not sure what happened so far," Sakura said, with a grin. "But, we're _guessing_ that Cedric hinted for Harry to go to the bathroom with him for the clue to the tournament. Cedric probably meant for him to go to the bathroom, stick the egg in the water, and listen for the clue. But...I think Harry took it the wrong way and now Cedric has just managed to freak him out."

Naruto snickered, remembering the frightened expression on Harry's face. "Well, we'll figure out how to get Harry a clue anyway."

"Well _I've_ got an idea," Kankurou said, much to everyone's surprise.

Somewhere out in Hogwarts, Harry shuddered.

* * *

"_You_..." Draco said in disbelief. 

"Me!" Madoka said cheerfully, with just as much enthusiasm as Draco with his disbelief.

"_You're_ 'his' transferred assistant?" he hissed to her incredulously.

"And I'm his cook!" Zane said with just as much cheerfulness as Madoka with her enthusiasm and Draco with his disbelief. "Nice to finally meet you in person, junior!"

"...I... did _not_ see this coming," Draco moaned, feeling a headache coming on. How could someone on the same side as the Dark Lord be so... so... perky? It was insane.

"And _I_ didn't see _anything_!" Madoka said. Draco glanced at her suspiciously.

"That's not very funny," Draco said. Blind jokes were one thing. Bland jokes were another.

"Yes it was!" she said.

"Yes she was!" Hatsu agreed, patting the younger girl on the forehead. ((A/N: Okay, so Madoka and Zane are acting stupid right now... I have this Fruits Basket 'Shigure-Ayame' friendship relationship thing going on. Or maybe not Shigure-Ayame, but more like Ayame-anyone.))

"Right," Draco said, nodding skeptically. "So...you're uh..."

"A slave to psychos?"

"I was going to say blind," he said awkwardly.

"Oh yes, that too," she said, not losing a single bit of her cheerfulness.

There was an awkward silence that only Draco seemed to notice. "So... I had little time the day before to get you anything of any value in response to the caviar and the truffles. It was delicious," he said in a voice that sounded like he was reciting a dull speech. "I'll make up for that later, but this will have to do for the time being," he said, dropping a small box in Madoka's lap.

"Ooh, what is it?" she asked, opening it up.

'_Ribbit_.'

"A froggie! A chocolate one! Lucy gave me them every day before he lost me!"

"Wait, when you say Lucy..." Draco said slowly. "Are you, by chance, referring to my fath—?"

"Here, froggie, froggie!" Madoka cried, jumping out of her seat and crawling on her hands and knees. Her chocolate frogs had managed to escape from her hands and was now hopping away with the blind girl crawling after it, listening for it's croaking.

"To the left, the left!" Hatsu cheered for her. "No, the other left! Just kidding, you were right the first time! Whoo!"

After several moments of scuffling around on the ground, knocking over chairs and tables, Madoka finally pounced on the chocolate frog and immediately crammed it with both hands into her mouth so that it wouldn't get away again.

"That... that's unsanitary!" Malfoy said in disgust.

"Really? I say it's delicious!"

* * *

Kurogane flipped through the Makotos' stack of papers. Days before, the older one had been out in some forest collecting insects and the younger at a party. She had taken one of her daydream scents as well, so Kurogane wasn't expecting her to return any time soon. 

It had been the perfect time to look through the seemingly blank sheets of papers that was actually Madoka's encoded writing.

Feeling along the lines, he 'read' the series of messages.

_Possible previous interactions with Akatsuki._

_LV and PP pass me on to LM. No more access to direct information._

_Vikki from shop in Diagon Ally. Previously some sort of shop that sells 'wishes'. Check into it?_

_Yugito dead for sure. That's 4 Jinchuuriki down, 5 to go. Start being very careful. _

_Elders of Sand dislike Gaara's long term mission. Want either him to become permanent kage who won't hide when in danger or elect new kage. I don't think you want him to lose his status quite yet (note the sarcasm)._

_Rumors of an immortal man. Not very strong in comparison to someone, for example, like Itachi, but unkillable? I'm sure LV or Oro would be very interested in that._

Sorting through the list of Braille messages now, Kurogane found an ink letter that he had forgotten to dispose of. The information that he had been collecting for his leader.

_I found the ninetails._

* * *

**Dumbledore's Giant Mistake**

_Albus Dumbledore, eccentric Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, has never been afraid to make controversial staff appointments, _writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. _In September this year, he hired Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, the notoriously jinx-happy ex-Auror, to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, a decision that caused many raised eyebrows at the Ministry of Magic, given Moody's well-known habit of attacking anybody who makes a sudden movement in his presence. Mad-Eye Moody, however, looks responsible and kindly when set beside the part-human Dumbledore employs to teach Care of Magical Creatures. _

_Rubeus Hagrid, who admits to being expelled from Hogwarts in his third year, has enjoyed the position of gamekeeper at the school ever since, a job secured for him by Dumbledore. Last year, however, Hagrid used his mysterious influence over the headmaster to secure the additional post of Care of Magical Creatures teacher, over the heads of many better-qualified candidates._

_An alarmingly large and ferocious looking man, Hagrid has been using his newfound authority to terrify the students in his care with a succession of horrific creatures. While Dumbledore turns a blind eye, Hagrid has maimed several pupils during a series of lessons that many admit to being "very frightening." _

"_I was attacked by a hippogriff, and my friend Vincent Crabbe got a bad bite off a flobberworm," says Draco Malfoy, a fourth-year student. "We all hate Hagrid, but we're just too scared to say anything."_

_Hagrid has no intention of ceasing his campaign of intimidation, however. In conversation with a _Daily Prophet _reporter last month, he admitted breeding creatures he has dubbed "Blast-Ended Skrewts," highly dangerous crosses between manticores and fire-crabs. The creation of new breeds of magical creature is, of course, an activity usually closely observed by te Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Hagrid, however, considers himself to be above such petty restrictions._

"_I was just having some fun," he says, before hastily changing the subject._

_As if this were not enough, the_ Daily Prophet _has now unearthed evidence that Hagrid is not—as he as always pretended—a pure-blooded wizard. He is not, in fact, even pure human. His mother, we can exclusively reveal, is none other than the giantess Fridwulfa, whose whereabouts are currently unknown._

_Bloodthirsty and brutal, the giants brought themselves to the point of extinction by warring themselves during the last century. The handful that remained joined the ranks of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and were responsible for some of the worst mass Muggle killings of his reign of terror._

_While many of the giants who served He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named were killed by Aurors working against the Dark Side, Fridwulfa was not among them. It is possible she escaped to one of the giant communities still existing in foreign mountain ranges. If his antics during Care of Magical Creatures are any guide, however, Fridwulfa's son appears to have inherited her brutal nature. _

_In a bizarre twist, Hagrid is reputed to have developed a close friendship with the boy who brought around You-Know-Who's fall from power—thereby driving Hagrid's own mother, like the rest of You-Know-Who's supporters, into hiding. Perhaps Harry Potter is unaware of the unpleaseant truth about his large friend—but Albus Dumbledore surely has a duty to ensure that Harry Potter, along with his fellow students, is warned about the dangers of associating with part-giants._

"Oh... well _this_ can't be good," Shikamaru said suddenly as he rolled up the Daily Prophet and stuffed it into his pocket Ravenclaw and Gryffindor shinobi were all roaming the halls before their first class began.

"What's so bad?" Naruto asked. "It's not as if he's _our_ friend."

"Well, he's Harry's friend, though it's not a friendship that I'm talking about," he answered. "Let me ask you a question: what are the odds that Maxime would go running to Rita Skeeter to tell her that Hagrid is a half-giant?"

"Well... she _was_ pretty angry about it," Kiba said angrily.

"But the odds are that, even though she claims to be 'big-boned', she's almost definitely a half-giant herself," Sakura said. "That Rita Skeeter is as nasty as reporters come. She probably would have mentioned Maxime if Maxime was her source anyway—whether she was citing an 'anonymous source' or putting her out in public and exposing her."

"But don't forget," Ino murmured, "Rita had an interview with Hagrid before. Maybe he did something to make her angry. Maxime hasn't done much to Skeeter, but if Hagrid didn't give her the information she wanted, that might be the reason that Skeeter targeted him."

"...Since when did _you_ get smart?" Sakura asked her best friend.

"I've been exposed to Shikamaru and Sasuke forever now," the blond girl said, shrugging. "They must've eventually rubbed off on me."

"Speaking of _Shikamaru_," Shikamaru said, interrupting before the conversation could stray further, "he would like for us to stay on topic. Let me answer my own question since none of you are giving me a straight response. Madame Maxime would _never_ risk exposing herself. There's only about an eighteen percent chance that she'd go to Skeeter, and that's in a _really_ desperate position. So that rules out one way she is getting her information. Students aren't allowed off Hogwarts grounds whenever they want, you know, which rules out any students giving her this inside account."

"Meaning...?" Kiba asked, looking at Shikamaru expectantly.

"_Meaning_ Rita Skeeter, who has actually been officially banned from Hogwarts property, has been roaming around on Hogwarts grounds unseen and undetected, even to the Hyuuga's Byakugan."

Shikamaru let the news completely sink in.

The Hogwarts security has been bypassed.

They—with their years of experience, childhood training, education when it came to the art of detection, their Hyuga and Inuzuka trackers, their _skills_ as a _shinobi—_had been outdone by a nosy _reporter_.

"Oh, my pride," Kiba said, clutching his chest almost heart wrenchingly. "It has suffered a fatal blow."

"We just got _owned_ by a stinking _reporter_," Naruto groaned, clutching his head with a fearful sound in his voice. "What's happening to us!"

The bell for their first class rang.

"Well, apparently, we just missed class," Sakura said.

Exchanging nervous glances, the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor shinobi parted ways to make a mad dash for their next classes.

Naruto, Ino, and Kiba ran for Care of Magical Creatures, each silently wondering just how Hagrid was handling the _Daily Prophet_ article and, much to their surprise, he wasn't dealing with it at all.

He was gone.

And in his place was an elderly witch with closely cropped gray hair.

"Well," Naruto said. "_You're_ not Hagrid. ...Are you?" The teacher did not hear this, but the shinobi snickered at Naruto's joke. Or... what they were _hoping_ was a joke.

"I'm Professor Grubbly-Plank," the woman said. "I'm your temporary Care of Magical Creatures teacher. Why were you three late for class?"

"We had a meeting with Headmaster Dumbledore concerning our translation spells," Ino said easily. "Where's Hagrid?"

"Indisposed," Harry muttered to them.

"Ah, the article. Sulking in his hut. So students can't skip classes, but teachers can," Naruto said cheerfully. "Plus, they get _paid_ to go to school. ,,,_Man_, I wish I was a teacher."

"This is a serious issue," Ron insisted.

"No it isn't," Naruto said. "He just needs a little time alone."

"Naruto, can't you do anything?" Hermione asked.

"No, and I'm not going to," Naruto said. "Everyone just needs a bit of time alone. There's no need to worry about him. We just have to wait for him to get over it."

* * *

"_Why_ aren't we waiting for him to get over it...?" Naruto asked as he shivered and stomped his feet in the snow in an attempt to warm himself up in the cold. The small group passed by the lake in time to see Viktor Krum dive into the lake. 

"Why's he taking a dive in the middle of January?" Ron asked incredulously. Naruto glanced at Harry for any reaction and saw none.

Seems like he wasn't too keen on taking Cedric's advice.

Heh.

It had been a week since Hagrid had become a recluse hermit of a half-giant man and, as educational as Grubbly-Plank was as a teacher,

Contrary to his complaints, Naruto didn't really mind tagging along in another one of the Golden Trio's fruitless attempts to get Hagrid to leave the safety of his hut. The Grubbly-Plank's lessons were getting more into the bookwork. Plus, her classes were much too plain.

"Hey, Hagrid!" Naruto said, pounding on the door. "Open up! That's enough moping around for you! ...I know you're in there! Nobody cares if your mom was a freaking giantess! Well... okay, _we_ don't! You can't stay in there forever just because that damn reporter made _you_ a target! C'mon... Don't think I can't break down the door!"

"But you can't..." Hermione hissed. "He's a _teacher_."

Naruto ignored her and drew back his fist. He slammed it into the door with a huge thud and the blond cursed, jumping back and shaking the pain out of his fist.

"Ow! ...I was _not_ expecting that..." Naruto muttered darkly, tapping on the door with his uninjured hand. "Tell me, Hagrid doesn't have anything heavy in his hut, right? I mean, last time I checked, he didn't have a desk or a bookshelf or anything."

"You're right..." Hermione said.

"Something huge is in front of this door," the blond said. "And if it's Hagrid sitting in front of the door, I'm not even going to _try_ pushing it open."

* * *

Hagrid placed himself in front of the door the moment he saw Harry and his friends heading towards his hut. He just wanted to be alone for a while. Ever since Madame Maxime had gotten angry and left him at the Yule Ball, he had been feeling the need to be alone. 

Rita Skeeter's article had been the last straw.

Before now, only Dumbledore had known about his 'giant secret'. A few other professors may have known or suspected, but none, at least, had mentioned anything. Now the students knew. It was no secret to Hagrid that many people disliked his classes. He was sure that the only students who would visit him were Harry and his friends.

Just like how they were about to visit him right now.

...Hagrid stubbornly stood in front of the door, in no mood to keep guests. It wasn't that he didn't want to see them, but he didn't want them acting so kind—

"Hey, Hagrid! Open up! That's enough moping around for you! ...I know you're in there! Nobody cares if your mom was a freaking giantess! Well... okay, fine, they do, but _we_ don't! You can't stay in there forever just because that damn reporter made _you_ a target! C'mon... Don't think I can't break down the door!"

...Okay, _Harry, Ron and Hermione _were the kind ones. _Naruto_ was just painfully blunt.

Hagrid stayed in front of the door and winced, hearing a painful thud against the wood.

"Ow!"

Hagrid paused, hearing some muttering behind the door and suddenly, _nothing_. He turned around and peeked through the crack between the woods that made up his door.

They were gone!

Hagrid was unsure whether to feel relieved that they had gone or hurt that they had left so easily—

"Heya," Naruto said,

"Hey! 'ow'd you get in 'ere?" Hagrid demanded, seeing all four of them in his hut.

"Through that hole in the wall you call a window," Naruto said casually as Harry, Ron, and Hermione struggled to get in through the window. "You might want to think of getting glass. Or filling up that hole. It's just a suggestion," Naruto said. He glanced at Ron and Hermione, who were both having problems getting in through the window. "C'mon, you two, lift up your legs a bit more. _Harry_ can do it!"

"_Harry_ was the one who got your crazy training..." Ron mumbled under his breath. "Not us."

"An _excellent_ excuse to not being able to climb in through a window only four feet off from the ground," Naruto said with false cheer.

"_Only_ four feet,t" Weasley said, shaking his head.

"Um... hi, Hagrid," Harry said. There was an awkward silence.

"Boy, you look like crap," Naruto said cheerfully. "Let's have tea!"

"That's not going to help—" Hermione began, but she stopped in midsentence as Naruto cheerfully ignored her and made tea. "Okay, whatever, the point is that _you_," she said, pointing at Hagrid, "need to get over what everybody thinks!"

"_We_ don't care about whether your mum was a giantess," Harry said. "Rita Skeeter is a foul woman who's just out to get people!"

"_Plus_," Ron said, "she's a _cow_."

"...Okay, you're not a sensitive guy, so I can get you not to appeal to Hagrid's feelings," Naruto said. "And Harry already covered how you guys feel and a bit on how annoying Skeeter is. ...And all you can come up with is how she's a _cow_? C'mon, don't you have any even slightly stronger word in your vocabulary? Well, maybe you don't, but can't you call her something like a... like a..."

"Miserly old crackpot of a bitch who'll die alone decrepit and ugli_er_?" Ron tried.

"_Nice_," Naruto said with a smirk. "Though I think the term 'reporter' would summarize that quite nicely."

Hagrid coughed back a small laugh as he continued to listen to Ron and Naruto bicker about what was worse to be called (a bitch or a reporter), much to Naruto's triumph.

"It's not so bad," Naruto said, once he was done confirming that Rita Skeeter's titles could be combined as a more powerful entity, 'the bitchy reporter'.

"But—but yeh don't know what it's like to be a half-giant!" Hagrid croaked.

"Well, if you look at it one way, you don't fit in either society. You're too big to fit into the Wizarding society, too small to fit into the giant society. If you look at it another way, you can intermingle with both. You're literate and intelligent enough to fit in with wizards, though you'll be a bit bigger than most. And you understand the point of view of the giants, though you'll appear a bit runty to them," Naruto said. "It could be worse."

"Like _how_?" Hagrid said.

"You could have _no_ place to fit in," the blond said simply. "Let's say... you're a full-blood giant, but you're the last one. Or you don't know any other full-blood giant. You live among wizards who completely resent you because they can't understand that you can't help the way you are, even though you do your best to stay on their good side. They don't see past the blood at all. Like... it's a bit hard to explain, I guess, But at least you're not a full-blood giant stuck in the Wizarding world, or a wizard stuck in a world of giants."

"That's a tad more insightful than what I'm used to you being," Hermione said suspiciously. "Personal experience?"

"I'm not a giant," Naruto said almost innocently. "Anyway, it's _Harry's _cousin who's fat, isn't he?"

"What does that have to do with it?" Ron said.

"Well, the Dursleys aren't the greatest people in the world," Harry said slowly, getting what Naruto was talking about.

"Exactly! And _Harry_ turned out fine! The apple fell from the tree and rolled down the hill. Now, I was going to use Albus Dumbledore and his possible brother 'Aberforth Dumbledore' as an example of two opposites, but... well their ethics are completely polar, though I guess they're both equally _weird_. ...Bad example, yeah, but they're not alike _morally_."

"Yeah, no more examples," Hagrid mumbled.

"Hey, is this a _letter _of _resignation_?" Naruto asked, pulling out an envelop. "You're going to _quit_?"

"'ey, why are yeh goin' through m'stuff?" Hagrid said.

"You can't quit!" he said, tossing it into the fire that he had lit to heat up the water. The water for the tea. The tea that really wasn't being made.

"Hey!"

"You're not giving up!" Naruto declared. "Grubbly-Plank is a good teacher, but you're better!"

"I've watched from the window," Hagrid said, waving at the hole in the wall of his hut. "The students like it better with 'er."

"They like it insanely safe," Naruto said. "I'm sure those OWLs the fifth years are going through right about now have something to do with Care of Magical Creatures. She plays it _safe_. I don't think we're going to figure out how to... how to treat scale-rot a fire-newt by keeping a respectful fifteen feet from the things."

"It could just be book work," Hagrid said.

"Hands-on experiences stick best. Listening increases one's memory by ten percent, watching by twenty, and _doing_ by at least fifty!" Hermione added.

"Exactly!" Naruto said, though he hadn't really been aware of those statistics. "And if we do things 'hands-on', then it'll be dangerous! And you're the only teacher good enough to deal with dangerous things like that! I mean, you're part-wizard, so you can do magic, and I'll eat my hitai-ate if that pink umbrella of yours doesn't have the pieces of your wand inside—"

Hagrid coughed nervously. No one was suppose to know that.

"—and you're part-giant, so you're partly resistant to spells due to your size and blood, and resistant to physical damage also because of your size. Plus, you've got an affinity with wild creatures—either because of your giant blood or your understanding of animals and animal instincts—so you're the perfect Care of Magical Creatures professor!"

"I... I s'pose so..." Hagrid said.

"Now," Naruto said, approaching Hagrid's 'window' and lifting a leg to climb through it, "I'll leave you guys to pour yourselves some tea, since you four have got more history than I do. But there's one more thing that I just _have_ to ask you."

"Wha' is it?" Hagrid asked.

Naruto shrugged, looking _somewhat _embarrassed, at least. "It's a bit awkward, but some people have been dying to figure out: how the heck did your mom and dad—?"

"Conception potion," Hagrid said quickly. "Father brews it with his hair in it, mother drinks it, and you get a kid. There's nuthing real physical about it, if that's what yeh're wonderin'."

"Oh thank god."

* * *

"Doesn't that guy have a job?" Ino wondered as she glanced at a group of goblins with Ludo Bagman. "You'd think that he'd be a bit busy and all, being a part of some huge ministry and stuff. Too busy to be playing with elves on steroids." 

"They're goblins," Sasuke corrected absentmindedly.

"Why's he here anyway?" Sakura wondered out loud to herself. "I mean, I'm sure the Ministry has to be _somewhat_ busy. That Crouch guy usually seems to have a lot on his plate. The last time I saw him, he was looking rather pale in the face. And considering the fact that there's no judging to be done, I don't see any reason why he should be here."

"He's probably just trying to get away from work," Gaara said disapprovingly.

"Yeah, like _you've_ never ran to a bar to hide from Baki," Kankurou snorted.

"I _haven't_," Gaara said.

"Of course not," Temari said. "You hide in the green house gardens."

"Temari!"

"So _that's_ where you disappear to all the time..." Kankurou mused.

"All the time?" Sakura repeated with a smile on her face.

"Every single day," the brother confirmed.

"Where's Naruto?" Shino said suddenly.

"Dragging Hagrid out of his hut, according to Ginny," Ino said vaguely. "Why?"

"Because I think doing him favors really isn't helping me," Shino said, starting to lower himself into his seat.

What are you talking ab—_oh_..." Ino and the others turned around to see Rita Skeeter looking intently at the table.

"Anyone getting any unexpected chills with a forty year old—" Kiba said.

"Forty-three," Shino corrected.

"..._Why_ do you know this?" Kiba asked.

"Know thy enemy."

"Ah, okay. Anyone getting any creepy chills with this forty-_three_ year old woman staring at us like meat?" Kiba wondered vaguely.

Ino frowned. "I get more creeped out by the pink nails and yellow robes and...and... _oh god, she's coming over here_—" she said,

"Hello, Shino Aburame," she said, caressing his name.

"..." Shino was sitting remarkably still.

"So, have you heard anything interesting lately?" Rita asked.

"..."

"Or written any interesting?"

"...Ma'am, I think you just missed him," Ino said with false politeness. Sakura coughed back a laugh.

"What are you talking abou—?" Rita almost asked when Sakura pulled out her wand, reached across the table, and poked Shino's coat.

Which folded in on itself. There had been no one inside that coat!

"What happened?" she said angrily.

"Looks like Shino escaped," Shikamaru said, taking the heavy overcoat and folding it so it didn't wrinkle.

"You'd make such a great housewife," Temari said with mock sincerity.

"Why thank you," Shikamaru said. "It's so relaxing with you being the man of the house. I suppose when we're older, you'll be the one bringing the bread to the table, right, hun?"

"Of course,_ dear_," Temari said. ...Those seated closest to Temari and Shikamaru had a feeling something was insanely weird at the moment.

"Gah, I'm being smothered," Rita said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "I'm leaving."

The moment Rita left, Shino crawled up from under the table and took his jacket back from Shikamaru.

"Okay, what was up with the 'honey' and the 'my de—?" Kiba began.

"_You call me a man again and_—" Temari said angrily.

"And you'll make my life a living hell," Shikamaru said, nodding idly. "_I know_."

"I'll explain later," Ino whispered to the others under her breath.

"So what was up with you and Rita?" Kiba said.

"She _may_ know I've been writing the contradictory articles about her work," Shino said, with the others leaning in to actually hear his voice.

"You _think_?" his friend said. "Oh, I must have missed the big as life clues to _that_. How do you think she found out?"

"And what do you think she'll do?"

"No idea," Shino said.

"...Oh crap, you already sent out your most recent articles, didn't you?" Sakura said slowly.

"I did."

* * *

((A/N: I know people are probably confused by that Temari/Shikamaru moment. The thing is that they've been arguing a bit. She's just a bit annoyed that Shikamaru seems to work with Ino more than her. It's nothing particularly huge, but... well, I don't think she she particularly enjoys being disregarded while the other works with a girl he worked with for a really long time. Couples usually don't.))

* * *

ICU...: Do you not realize how incredibly disgusted I am? I feel like a pervert.  
G.U.N.: It could be worse.  
ICU...: _How_?  
G.U.N.: It could be an OLD man that you're watching.  
ICU...: **DAMMIT NARUTO DON'T GET THINGS STUCK IN MY HEAD!**

Neji wasn't feeling too good right now. The Byakugan was being exploited, once again, for demeaning purposes!

It was meant to look at an enemy's chakra, to lock in on a target, to look for lost items...

It was _not_ meant to look in on people of the same gender in the bathroom.

Neji couldn't feel worse about being a peeping tom. Tenten was already making fun of him. Neji was ready to kill the first person he saw. Even though it was just Moaning Myrtle.

...She'll wake up in a few days.

Neji was currently roaming around in the halls not minding his own business.

In fact, he was minding _someone else's _business. Harry Potter's, to be exact.

He had gotten permission from Dumbledore to roam the halls this night, which, according to Naruto, just so happened to be the night that Harry planned to go to the Prefects' Bathroom to try and find out more about the egg.

Well, after fifteen minutes of watching the kid play with the different color soap and bubbles, Neji started to get bored. Sure, the bathroom looked quite nice, bath salts included, but he was _bored_ and _irritated_. The task of spying on Harry in the baths was up to either of the two Hyuugas, but as a member of the Branch family, it was his duty to 'protect' the Main branch.

Which meant preventing his pure cousin from having to spy on a guy.

In this type of setting.

Neji sighed. He should have just let Hinata do it. Screw conserving her innocence. He was going out with Naruto of all people, and Naruto was the only slightly cleaner equivalent version of Kiba.

He froze at that thought, making a strangled sound. Some mix between a grunt and a cry of horror.

After briefly zoning in on them with his Byakugan, Neji was relieved to find that the two were sleeping peacefully in their respective dorms.

He'd have to watch them just in case.

Speaking of watching, after another twenty minutes, Harry was finished playing with the multicolored facets and was finally settling down to try and focus on the egg.

'_Put it in the water. Put it in the water. Put it in the water..._' Neji thought to himself.

Nearly an hour later, Neji was resting on a nearby step, chatting with a picture of a hanged man when Harry finally got a clue and dropped the egg in the water. Moments later, he opened it.

"Yes!" Neji cried out loudly, to no one in general. He was almost there... As soon as Harry heard the song, his job would be done and then he'd be allowed to sleep for the rest of the night.

"...NO!" He pounded his head against the wall in frustration as Harry, who didn't seem to figure out that if he just _stuck his head under water_, he would get the clue. Instead, he closed the egg under the water and pulled it out.

"Aaaaah! Idiot!" he shouted. "Put it back, put it back!"

The Hanged Man stared at him oddly. "...I think you're more strung over than I am. Get it? Strung over. Get it?"

Moments later, Neji left the torn canvas with a twitch in his pale eyes. He quickly moved through the hallways to intercept the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry was walking down the stairs, as quietly as possible and Neji followed just as quietly in pursuit of him.

'_I'll strangle him. I'll strangle him, toss the egg underwater, and force his head in the tub too. That'll do the job. Definitely._'

'_At least_,' Neji thought to himself, '_we managed to successfully teach him how to sneak around undetected—oh... spoke too soon._'

The wizard was creeping along the corridors only two hallways and a staircase away, taking a narrow shortcut that would take him down two floors at half the time. He was being careful to avoid making noise, Neji could tell.

In fact, he was _so_ careful watching the map for approaching adults that he had forgotten to watch out for the trick step, which he sunk knee deep into. With an awkward wobbling, he dropped the wet gold egg. He lurched forward to try and catch it, but he was too late. The egg fell down the long staircase with, echoing in the darkness. In his rush, the Invisibility Cloak that Harry was wearing slipped; he snatched at it to remain hidden and the Marauder's Map fluttered out of his hand and slid down several steps where—while stuck up to his knee in the trick step—he couldn't reach it.

The gold egg fell to the bottom of the staircase, burst open, and began to wail loudly in the corridor below. Harry pulled out his wand and struggled to touch the Marauder's Map, to wipe it blank, but it was too far away to reach.

Harry pulled the cloak back over himself and straightened up, listening hard with his eyes shut tight in fear and—

"PEEVES!"

Neji winced as Argus Filch came marching down the hallway.

Hm... He'd probably have to end up covering for Harry. Well, now that Harry didn't have that map that conveniently showed his location in the castle and thus the speed at which he was following Harry, Neji applied chakra to the soles of his feet and sped up towards the entrance to the stairwell.

"What's this racket? Wake up the whole castle, will you? I'll have you, Peeves, I'll have you, you'll... what's this?"

Filch's footsteps came to a stop as the man picked up the egg and closed it, silencing the wailing Mermish song.

"An egg? ...My sweet! This is a Triwizard clue! This belongs to a school champion!"

'_Oh shit!_'

"PEEVES! You've been stealing!" Filch cackled.

'_...Thank god he's an idiot_,' Neji thought, sighing a sigh of relief.

"Filch?"

Snape.

"What's going on here?" the potions master demanded.

"Who died?" Anko muttered, following after him like she usually did.

"It's Peeves, Professor," Filch whispered gleefully. "He threw this egg down the stairs.

"Peeves?" Snape repeated, his voice laced with suspicion.

"The egg was in your office, Professor?"

"Of course not. I heard it banging and wailing—"

"Yes, Professor, that was the egg—"

"—I was coming to investigate—"

"—Peeves threw it, Professor—"

"—and when I passed my office, I saw that the torches were lit and a cupboard door was ajar! Somebody has been searching it!"

"But Peeves couldn't—"

"I know he couldn't, Filch! I seal my office with a spell none but a wizard could break! I want you to come and help me search for the intruder, Filch."

"I—yes, Professor—but—" He looked yearningly at the top of the stairs, where Neji was standing, hidden in the shadows.

The Hyuuga was waiting at the top of the stairs. If Snape, Filch, and Anko started coming up, depending on the circumstances, he would run away. No sense in getting into trouble. He'd just have to run quietly enough to avoid letting Snape and Filch hear him, but loudly enough so that Anko could hear his footsteps, realize it was a Konoha shinobi, and cause some sort of distraction.

"The thing is, Professor," Filch said hesitantly, "the headmaster will have to listen to me this time. Peeves has been stealing from a student. It might be my chance to get him thrown out of the castle once and for all—"

"Filch, I don't give a damn about that wretched poltergeist. It's my office that's—"

_Clunk, clunk, clunk_.

"Something wicked this way comes," Anko said cheerfully as Moody arrived on the scene.

"Pajama party, is it?" Moody growled.

"Yeah, care to join us?" she asked pleasantly. "Rules and requirements aren't completely necessary though. I'm actually not wearing anything under my jacket."

"..."

Ah, so the Tokubetsu Jounin knew Neji was there after all. ...Though that was a pretty awkward diversion.

The awkward silence lasted a little while. No one seemed to be sure of how to respond to this comment.

Neji went up behind Harry and grabbed him by the arm. Harry, who was surprised by Neji's sudden arrival, jerked and resisted for a moment, only to realize it was someone there to help.

Neji started pulling Harry out of the trick step, but he paused when he saw Moody's magical eye focus on him.

"Maybe I shouldn't have said that?"

"You _definitely _should not have," Snape muttered, looking annoyed by Anko's lack of conservatism.

"So," Moody said. "What do you three think it was? A poltergeist or a thief?"

"By all logic, it was probably a thief—" Anko said when Snape cut her off.

"It's not your business, Moody."

"You're not hiding anything, are you?" Moody asked, with a derisive tone in his voice.

"You know I have nothing to hide," the potions master responded. "You should know, as you've searched my office rather thoroughly on several occasions,"

"Heh, well I couldn't resist my most recent inspection," the scarred professor said. "After you transfigured the walls into marble and prevented me from going through your belongings from afar, I suspected that you were hiding something. Plus, I'm curious to know how you knew what to do to block my eye."

"It was a present from me," Anko said. "It's the same kind I designed for the Yule Ball! I got it 'cause I thought it looked pretty!"

Snape frowned. Maybe it was because of a little white lie he found in Anko's comment, or maybe it was because he spotted something of a pale yellow shade on the ground...

Harry realized that, in his panic to get out of the trick step—as he and Neji were already nearing the end of the hallway—he had nearly left the Marauder's Map behind in the stairwell.

He wouldn't be able to reach it in time!

Harry paid little attention to Neji. The Hyuuga had previously already been out of the stairwell and into the hallway, but he started to run back towards the stairs.

Harry's eyes widened.

Snape was going to find the map and know it was him!

"That..." he said, making his way towards the map. "That egg... That egg is Potter's egg. That pieceof parchment belongs to Potter. I have seen it before, I recognize it! Potter is here! Potter in his Invisibility Cl—"

"_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!_"

There was a series of 'thumps' as Neji rolled down the stairs.

"Hyuuga!" Anko said suddenly, feigning shock. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been running in circles all night long!" Neji said, with extremely realistic anger. His very eyes seemed to radiate with rage and his tense position showed signs of barely controllable emotions.

"Doing _what_?" she said incredulously.

"I've been looking for that morally dysfunctional poltergeist!" he said, looking left and right. "I lost him!"

Neji spun around and make a sharp turn to run back up the stairs, but he slipped on the parchment that Severus was about to pick up and fell back down the stairs on his back and head.

"DAMN IT ALL AGAIN!" he swore. "This... this is the dozenth time I've been in this hallway, the sixth time I've dropped my map, and the THIRD BLOODY TIME THAT I SLIPPED ON MY BLOODY MAP!"

"You have a map of Hogwarts?" the teachers said.

"...Yeah," Neji muttered, picking up the Marauder's Map and scratching his head.

"And it's _accurate_?" Filch said.

"Well... according to this, there should be a stairwell in this hallway. ...But we're _in_ a stairwell... And the hallways is up there..." Neji turned it upside down. "...No, that doesn't work either."

"Let me see that," Snape said impatiently, grabbing for the map.

"Make your own," Neji said said petulantly, snatching it away from him and frowin.

"Do you have permission to be here?" Filch asked, suddenly realizing that he had found one of the things he had always been looking for. A good student wandering in the hallways after curfew.

"...Is that my egg in your hands?" Neji asked, starting to look rather peeved again.

"This—?"

"I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THAT FOR THREE BLOODY HOURS!" Neji shouted. "You! _You_ took it?"

He immediately began shouting at Filch in another language. Apparently, he had a Japanese vocabulary that had Anko giggling.

"Never expected someone with as high a status as you to be cursing like a sailor," she said, holding up a hand. "But look, what I'm guessing happened is that Peeves took your egg, right?"

"Right..." Neji said slowly.

"And you've been searching for it since then, right?" she said.

"Yes."

"Well, what happened here is that I think Peeves decided to take it just to toss it down the stairwell just for the heck of it!" Anko said. "The egg started screaming, and it woke everyone near here up. So we came to find out what it was, and Argus picked it up. No need to start yelling. I don't want to have to hit you to shut you up. Besides, I don't want the Hyuuga's cutting my eyes out just for speaking against you. I remember what happened to your father when he just _glared_ at your uncle. Jeez, you Hyuugas never miss a chance to overreact at everything, don't you?"

Neji was about to tell her that what she had said made no sense at all, when she saw the others frown with shocked expressions on their faces. Argus, who had previously looked as if he were about to berate Neji for some probably insignificant reason, shut his mouth.

"We're not barbarians, just so you know," Neji said, playing along slightly. It was only considered 'slight' because some of the above comments were true. Twisted to fit the story, but true. "We're just extremely strict."

"Plus, they have an insanely high status," Anko added. "They nearly caused a way between our country and another. Scary times, they were. I didn't want to go into direct battle."

"..."

"Aw, gee, I think I killed the life in our pajama party... I'm a party pooper..." she said, hanging her head lowly. "Well, Argus, I suppose you hafta hand over the egg. Neji will file a complaint to Dumbledore about Peeves later, I guess. If anyone has a say in things, it's a Hyuuga. And let's all go to sleep! It's four in the morning, and I'd like to wake up to a nice sunny day tomorrow!"

One by one, all of the wizards turned to leave. Neji turned around and looked up the stairs, nodding slightly to Harry for him to go ahead. He would catch up with Harry later.

"Hyuuga..." Moody growled.

Neji turned around.

"About that map... it's rare to find or make an accurate map of Hogwarts, with it's moving staircases. Mind if I take a look?" he asked.

"Sure," Neji said, pulling it back out of his pocket, though he didn't hand it over to the professor just yet.

"I thought I saw something on it. A closer look, if I may?"

"You could always zoom in on it with your magical eye," Neji said, activating his Byakugan completely, though most of its effects were lost in the darkness. "I think you noticed the same thing I noticed. This map is magical. It's also very accurate. I know you know this, and you know I know that you know this. It shows the location and name of a person, no matter what."

"Is that so?" Moody said roughly in a low voice.

"Yes," Neji said, holding the map above his head thoughtfully, looking at it in the darkness. "And according to this fascinating map, Bartemius Crouch was rummaging around in Professor Severus Snape's private potions ingredients cabinet. Now, if the Triwizard Judge is as sick as everyone makes him out to be, then how did he get all the way over here without assistance and without letting the authorities and media figure it out?"

"...You don't know this for sure," Alastor said. "You only took one look at the map, and at the time you looked at it, the potions cabinet was completely empty."

"That's very true," Neji said. "I didn't know all of this by looking at the map earlier. I found out all of this because, first of all... I saw you."

"Impossible..."

"_Not _for a _Hyuuga_, it's not. Plus, according to this map right here," Neji said, refolding up the map, "I am talking to Bartemius Crouch. Odd, isn't it? ...The map doesn't lie."

Neither said anything for several moments.

Neither moved for several moments.

All of a sudden, both of them had their wands out. Neji and Bartemius Crouch were at a stand off.

"I knew it..." Crouch said slowly. "There is something special about your eyes, aren't there?"

"No shit."

"Heh, with all those times you continuously suspected me of foul play... I thought you were some sort of genius. I suppose, however, it wasn't your intelligence that caught me, but rather your inborn abilities. And now you have finally solved the mystery of who was behind the whole Goblet of Fire incident, as well as every single other incident in this school... Too bad the same thing is going to happen to you as what I did to you all of the other times..."

Neji's chakra flared angrily at the suggestion that he was constantly falling for the same trap over and over. "_What are you talking abou—?_"

There was a bright flash of light and a heavy thud.

* * *

**My Thinking Corner**

Hm... About that poll on who Snape would meet... COMPLETELY IGNORE THAT! I'm sorry! After a really long time without writing (sorry about that too) I forgot to count the votes and it's taking a really long time to look and see who voted for who...

Alright, well, it's exactly 4:10 in the morning. I thought I was almost done with the reviews. It's been five hours. Then I turn to the next page in my mail to fund

One particularly memorable review in Ch1: Itachi'sEBILcuppycake  
cake-chan has tied yarochisai to a chair, in a dark room  
"now, you will update or we will kill you, it is a simple choice"  
the rest of akatsuki gathers around yarochisai and nod their heads, cake-chan reaches inside her akatsuki cloak and pulls out a mac, the random, mystic, blue-haired member unties yarochisai's hands and cake-chan pushes the mac-book into them, all the akatsuki members file out and cake-chan shuts the door behind her, revealing that there is no inner doorknob  
/ how did you like the micro-fic i just wrote in your honor?/  
**ME**: Hm... very enjoyable, mildly disturbing.

**Randomgirl**: Aw, had I been that obvious? I was hoping everyone else thought it was Ino!  
**aznelemants**: No worries. I'm pretty sure there are people here squeeing for you. And thanks! I've never done the fluff before, so I was a bit worried.  
**Too lazy to get an account...**: I like to think of Ino as a very vain person. It makes her funny and more appealing. ...So long as she remains a fictional character, of course. I don't think I would be able to stand her is she was a real person... As for the Gaara kills part... Gaara was using his sand and his third eye technique to destroy Sakura's dress and stuff like that. Everyone else assumed he was killing someone. And yes, having Jiraiya come sneak in your house through the chimney would be a traumatizing experience for all the little children and the babes in the world. I actually had a different scene in mind when I was writing for the Gaara-Sakura scene, but I just couldn't get it down on paper or type it up without wincing at how weird it was. I'm crap at romance, so I prefer mixing humor into it. As for who's side Snape is... you'll see. ((I'll probably make up my own mind for sure later on anyway)). Ino was mad because she had gone through the difficulty of getting Harry a date for the ball, and he was busy sulking over Cho. Whom I don't really like anyway. There could be a documentary. 'The Making of Rubeus Hagrid.' ...Ugh. (shudders). And what do you mean 'am I going to make the characters add suffixes to the names?' As in Sasuke-kun and Sakura-chan? I can't see Gaara saying anything ending with '-chan'... And no, after reading the manga, I refuse to let Asuma go like that. I don't care who has to pay! ((...I've got an idea in mind, though if the characters were real, then xxxxx'll probably hate me for it)). And no, Gai's not at Hogwarts. Frankly, I got tired of the waves and the ocean that he brought with him everywhere he went.  
**blade75**: Thanks! Actually, I was just really annoyed at the time. It _was_ just one little comment, and at first it didn't really affect me, but after a while, it probably sorta subconsciously built up and I just flamed back, despite my previous disposition.  
**celtic-pride**: Whoo, a gymnast guy! ...No, I'm not calling you weird or anything. Ironically, at my school, we don't really have any big sports, but you could say that the 'clique' most similar to the missing jocks would be the gymnasts... Weird. ...And it's a pretty sorry excuse for a clique as well. Our school is too small to have cliques. ...And that was a completely random fact as well. Anyway, if that guy was a _real_ fuhrer, he's a pretty sorry excuse for one. Can't even spell it right.  
**GirlLoki**: Lol, I'm curious to know what you were going to finish calling him.  
**Anonymous**: Whoo! Loved the review! And yeah, I was thinking of having it being a subtle Ino VS Neji, but since Neji and Naruto are on pretty decent terms, I decided that it was just too weird to have Neji suddenly being all rude and stuff. I mean, the main reason he's against Naruto/Hinata is that... well, he actually doesn't mind them getting together. He just wants to feel involved (kinda like the father, lol)! And I believe we are _all_ just waiting for the day for the Masashi Kishimoto to bend to the will of the fans and make it a NaruHina manga. Anyway, as for whether the general Hyuuga clansmen like or dislike Naruto is something I'm always wondering. I mean, I know that people generally dislike him for his affiliation with the Kyuubi that pretty much was slaughtering Konoha all those years ago, but... well, I'd understand it if most of the people in Konoha didn't like Naruto, but I'd think that Hiashi of all people would appreciate him. I mean, he's the one who inspired Hinata to become stronger and actually become strong, he's the one who helped Neji out of his 'I'm-a-caged-bird-must-kill-Main-Branch' issue, and he's also the one who brought it to Hiashi's attention that his clan was falling apart. Or well, I'll make my decision some day...  
**Anonomous**: Thank you for the suggestion. I'm thinking of going for that choice anyway.  
**Lazy-Hime**: Ah, that's alright if you don't like the pairings. You're one of my veteran reviewers, so it's not a big deal whether you dislike the pairings or not. ...That part was a big repetitive, wasn't it. Anyway, you're reviewed for me enough so that I know that when you express your opinion about something you don't like about myself or this story, I know you don't mean any harm by it. In that way, if you don't like it, it makes a greater impact but sparks a smaller urge to fight back. Anyway, once you get the artwork up again, don't forget to tell me!  
**Shadow-Sess-Marlfox**: A jacket, eh? I want it! My fingers are numb, actually, I can't tell if it's because I'm tired or if it's because it's really cold in the house. Or maybe both. And yum. Computer cookies. I hope it's not infested with viruses, lol.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Finally done. It is 5:04 in the morning and I'm fucking tired. SIX HOURS RESPONDING TO REVIEWS! Somewhere between heaven and hell, funny and I-want-to-kill-the-imaginary-man-sitting-next-to-me. Fuck, I'm tired... Somewhere between three or for, I was looking at my reviews, and I was like, "yes, almost done! " and then I later realize, "no! I'm barely more than halfway there!"

((it's not 1:00 in the day, and I'm back to finish what I didn't finish))

**darkflame**: Ah, sorry about that. I am planning on later shortening the chapters to maybe the thirties, max. I'm not sure what you are referring to when you talk about the 'gayness', sorry. And Anko... I wouldn't call her silly... I'd just say that she has one focus on her mind and otherwise, she'll just act like a kid until it's all over. Oh yeah, I had forgotten about the lightning element Harry part. Thanks for reminding me! I think I've seen the comic, but I can't remember right now. I clicked on the link again just now, but it said somehting about hoe the picture was removed. By the way, the Russion Reversal thing was hilarious!  
**sasusaku4-ever**: I really am sorry, but I already chose to go with SasuIno and GaaSaku...  
**anomaly**: Thanks!  
**Anime-fan**: Well... I can't say that the battle scene is going to be too exciting or anything, but the second task is coming out around the thirty-fourth chapter, I can say that...  
**DeathsLightGal**: I don't personally think that you have to write fanfiction to give a perfectly good review. Not writing it yourself is no excuse to not point out the mistakes of a writer. That's what I think, anyway. And yeah, the Golden Trio are going to find a little more about the shinobi... but not in the way that everyone thinks. You're on the right track. XD. And believe me, the Sasu/Ino scared me too, because I didn't even know what I was doing when I was writing it. It was just a convenient couple for me, though, since I planned for the Yule Ball more than any part so far. And you're a Hiei/Botan fan, eh? Cool. If you have any good recommendations, I'll read.  
**naturelovinganimeaddict**: Thanks for reading the first chapter! And uh... WHICH IS KAKASHI'S FIRST NAME? I've always been secretly confused about that. ...Well, not so secretly anymore, but... you get what I mean. Anyway, thanks for pointing out the mistakes! I'll make sure to correct them all better later!  
**Jess**: Yep. Thatz and Kitchel. I couldn't help inserting the legendary thieves. XD They aren't main characters though...  
**Blink blink**: Well some people still think that he is a good guy. I personally don't think so, but some of the reasons are pretty reasonable (though I'm more of a 'he'll do something incredible and amazing in the end, and would possibly get kill in the process' type of supporter). Anyway, I'm sorry to hear about your cat, and I'm glad this story helped a bit and stuff, I guess.  
**Wolf**: I'm relieved you didn't die, though if you keep on laughing that long, you might run out of air... Or take up everyone else's are and kill _them_. Though I think that Madoka out-evils both Lucius AND Voldemort! Muahahahaha! ...Yeah.  
**whatever**: I never thought that verbally assaulting someone would make me a hero! ...In that case, I think I'll do it again!  
**Anonomys**: Hm... I think the Japanese word for maximum MIGHT be 'kyokudai', but I'm not completely sure, so you might want to ask someone about that before you make some huge mistake or something... or 'saidaigendo'? Not sure...

**Santa**: I'm pretty aware that all of the parallels between Harry Potter and Naruto don't make up for the differences, though I have to say that if you want common sense, you may want to look at my other crossover. It's a bit more sensible, but less humor. And no offense, but I get annoyed when someone calls certain things in this annoying. The A/Ns inserted in the story, I can understand, but I refuse to (no offense, again). I usually can't help but insert little comments as I write. It's like oneof my OCDs. Gotta get it out. And I need to connect the dots between plates at restuarants. And I need to tap my mouse on the table before I use it (i have a lot of scratches ont he desk from that, lol) Anyway. as 'nice' as you were in that review, I'm not getting rid of my ANs, sorry.


	32. Chapter 32

_I am no longer writing for most character accents. Sorry. Use your imagination._

Chapter 32: Swimming Lessons

"HOW THE HELL DID _THAT_ HAPPEN?!"

Harry jerked out of bed to see Naruto sitting up in bed with Hinata standing next to him with a slightly upset look on her face. Harry didn't say anything for a moment, sitting up with a dazed expression on his face.

'_Why was Hinata in the boy's dorm so early in the morning anyway...?_' he wondered to himself.

"What is it...?" Kiba asked groggily from across the room as he, like the others woken up by the shouting, looked sleepily at Naruto, who looked wide awake as if he had been given some sort of an electric jolt.

"Shino was—!"

"_We've got a huge emergency_!" Ino cried, barging through the door into the dorms without bothering to keep it quiet. Suddenly, with the addition of yet another girl in the dorms, all of the boys began to realize, with a sick feeling of dread, that _there were girls in the room_.

Many dove to cover themselves with their sheets. Ordinarily, Ino probably would have rolled her eyes and made a comment about how they had nothing new to hide from her, but now was not the time.

"Shikamaru wants us up and meeting at the usual place," she said stiffly, without a single trace of her usual lighthearted attitude or humor in her voice.

-

"Okay, so what happened, exactly?" Kiba said, a bit confused. He glanced at everyone nervously at the group, which was still somewhat incomplete, missing a few members.

"Neji was attacked," Tenten said, looking as if she was having a hard time holding back her irritation. "Nick found him this morning at the foot of a stairway."

"Nick?"

"Sir Nicholas Thomas Mimsy Porpington, or something like that," she muttered. "Nearly Headless Nick. He found Neji unconscious at the bottom of the stairs."

"How did Neji of all people end up like that?" Naruto said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"He'd never fall down the stairs over his own feet and knock himself out. And it feels just as unbelievable that someone would beat him up," Sakura said. "First of all, no one beats a Hyuuga in the middle of the night without _someone_ hearing something. Second, no one in their right mind would just leave a body in the middle of the hallway. If Neji got into a fight with someone, he's a major threat to them. I mean, it's _Hyuuga_ Neji. Why didn't they kill him if they had the chance?"

Tenten shrugged. "Beats me... Anyway, Neji was taken to the infirmary, but they're thinking of sending him to Saint Mamba's or something—"

"Not at the moment," Hinata said, arriving on the scene. As family, she had been allowed entry inside of the infirmary. "He's woken up."

"So?" Tenten said, looking more alert. "What happened? What'd they say about him?"

"Not much. He's being tested by medi-wizards for physical, mental, and magical damage right now," she said. "There are reporters swarming all over this situation... Speaking of which..."

"Where's Shino?" Shikamaru asked. Hinata tilted her head up slightly.

"Here."

Shino jumped down from the tree branch and landed lightly on his feet. Bugs that had lightly littered the forest floor slowly made their way back to the Aburame, who pulled his hood back slightly so that they would reenter through his skin and any other entry they were allowed, including his ears and various self-inflicted orifices gaping in his skin.

"Ew!"

None of the shinobi so much as blinked an eye at the sound of a strangers voice.

"Come on out, you three," Temari said loudly. "We've known you were hiding behind that tree from the very beginning."

Nothing happened.

"Come out or _I'll make you come out_," Gaara and Sasuke said at the same time. They looked at each other expressionlessly, neither sure what exactly to say. They both looked away simultaneously as Harry, Hermione, and Ron pulled off the invisibility cloak and stepped forward dejectedly.

"The day people acknowledge you as a great six-legged spy, I'll cut my hair off," Ino said, shaking her head. "Honestly, if you want to spy, you three can _not_ walk around as if you're joined at the hips, Invisible cloak or no. Plus, that thing doesn't always cover your feet."

The three of them looked down at their feet suddenly, realizing that, with how much they've grown those past years, Ino was probably right.

"And since the three of you lack spy tactics, sufficient equipment, _and_ alternative techniques, you should probably go for the direct approach," Shikamaru said.

They didn't say anything.

"...Well? Aren't you going to ask us what's going on this morning?" he said.

"What happened this morning?!" Ron said, as if on cue.

"First," Kankurou said, "Neji is found unconscious at the bottom of the stairs between the second and third floor in the east corridor. Harry, he was following _you _to the _bathroom_. Wait, that sounds funny... It would also be strange to tell you guys that he was spying on you in there... Well, Neji was making sure that you stayed out of trouble. But, since Neji isn't exactly here at the moment, that makes you, Harry, the sole witness as to what happened last night."

"So?" Tenten said with a hint of impatience. "What happened?"

"I'm... not sure, really," Harry said honestly. "I went into the Prefect's bathroom to work out the egg clue and then I left. I had to get back to the Gryffindor tower without getting caught by the teachers since it was way past curfew, but I ended up getting caught on the trip step in the staircase. I dropped the Golden Egg and it fell open and down the staircase. I nearly dropped everything I had with me, but I managed to get my Invisibility Cloak back on without getting caught. My map..."

Harry's eyes widened slightly, as he silently hoped that Neji hadn't lost it, and he felt slightly guilty for worrying over something like a map when someone could have been seriously injured that very moment.

"Filch came by first, but he thought Peeves stole the egg and threw it down the hallway just for the heck of it."

"Thank god he's an idiot," Tenten said, though she still looked rather tense, with her boyfriend in the hospital.

"Yeah, well, apparently, Snape isn't," Harry said. "Because he and Anko came by next. Apparently, someone had been going through his potion cabinet stealing things. The torches of his office were just lit, or something, and the cupboard door was ajar. There are wards on the cabinet door that only a wizard could break."

"Wait, that means that you, Filch, Anko, and Snape weren't the only ones down there," Sakura said. "The potions cabinet is close to the stairwell where Neji was found and where you were. When you dropped the egg, it fell into the hallway and started wailing. You interrupted the person inside right after or in the middle of whatever it was that he or she was doing."

"Which means that last night, the intruder was still here," Sasuke said. "And the chances of him still being here are rather high, since there have been no records of people entering or leaving Hogwarts as of last night."

"What else happened?" Shikamaru asked Harry.

"Moody came," he said. "Anko started making a distraction and, and they were just looking at her funny. While she distracted them, Neji pulled me out of the trick step. We were about to run, but I remembered that my map fell down near the bottom of the stairwell. Neji was ahead of me, but I guess he somehow knew that I was going to try and go back for it. Snape saw the map too, near the bottom, and he almost pieced everything together, with my egg and the map."

"What happened next?" Ino asked him.

"Well... Neji ran back towards the stairwell and threw himself down the stairs..." Harry said slowly.

"Hm... it's possible that he knocked himself out when he fell," Shikamaru said slowly, "but not likely. We know how to fall without hurting ourselves, and we're a lot more durable than _that_. Still, if he landed wrong, he might have hit his head."

"That probably wasn't it," the Boy-Who-Lived said. "Because Neji got right back up, acted a bit... crazy, and made a bit of a tantrum about how he's been chasing after Peeves because he took the egg. Then, when the teachers saw my map and were about to figure out it was me, he went down a little bit further on the stairs, stepped on the my map, and slipped on it, falling a bit further. After that, he said it was his map and covered up for me."

"What happened next?" Tenten asked.

"Well, nothing much," Harry said. "Neji motioned for me to go back to the common room, so I left. I thought he was going to follow me and give back the egg and the map, but he never came up, so I assumed that he would give it back later, instead of following me and possibly causing the other teachers to become suspicious as to why a Ravenclaw was heading towards the Gryffindor dorm..."

"Well, that pretty much sounds like a logical explanation," Naruto muttered.

"You were going to do your best to blame me for it, weren't you?" he asked knowingly.

"Of course," the blond said with a grin. "We've got a lot of pent-up rage, with all sorts of junk happening to all of us."

"Like what?" Ron asked. "What else happened?"

"_This_." Naruto pulled something out of his pocket and thrust a wrinkled newspaper towards them. Straightening the surface and reading the headlines, the three read the bold print title of the article and gasped.

**Drug Dealer Found in Hogwarts!**

"What the heck? Who's the deal—_oh..._ That's not... that's not good."

_Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is home to hundreds of students and, apparently, a possible drug dealer. _

_Rumors have been circulating among students that a privately owned story called 'Onaji Ana No Mujina', to produce eccentric 'powders'—what the two Makoto sisters call 'magic dust', which seem to often result in paralysis, severe burns, explosions, poison, unconsciousness, nausea, dangerous hallucinations, and/or death..._

"They were just joking!" Harry said.

"Not really," Gaara said quickly, looking rather annoyed. "But keep reading."

_...And while Onaji Ana no Mujina produces the drugs, Aburame Shino makes a large bit of the profit, selling the products to other students..._

Harry stopped reading there.

"That's not good..." Ron said.

"Understatement of the century," Sakura said, frowning and skimming through the rest of the article. "Not to mention, if they start digging around even further, they might realize that the Makotos aren't here legally."

"They aren't?" Hermione said. "So they're, like, illegal immigrants?"

"Doesn't matter," Shikamaru said suddenly. "There is an easy solution to all of it. We go directly to the Ministry of Magic and make an appeal."

"An appeal?" Ron said.

"Translated from politician talk to normal colloquial language, we make demands," he said, shrugging.

"Do you really have enough political power to overcome the Minister of Magic?" Hermione asked them.

"You've forgotten one thing, Granger," Temari said with a grin. "This is Sabaku Gaara we're talking about here—the Kazekage of the Village Hidden Among Sand."

"The _what_?" Ron asked.

"Leader of our village."

"Oh."

"I don't think I forgot..." Hermione said slowly. "Did you guys ever even tell us that?"

The Japanese students all exchanged glances. "We didn't?"

"Well..." Naruto said, scratching his head. "Now you know! Gaara is the leader of the Sand Village."

"...Can a mayor really overpower a minister?" Hermione asked skeptically.

"The Sand is not just any ordinary village. The entire country, the Land of Wind, is one of the five most powerful countries in our domain. That is because, to achieve power, one needs a great military. We don't have a large amount of citizens in our village, but we make up for the small quantity of soldiers, we increase the quality," Temari said.

"So... the title 'Village Hidden in the Sand' is just another name for the military?"

"In a way. The Wind Country has it's own military, of course, but you could say... we're special," Kankurou said with a grin. "Where we come from, what we call 'Hidden Villages' are more like extensions of the military. A special branches, I guess."

"We're getting off topic again," Shikamaru announced. "The point is that Gaara can challenge Rita Skeeter's claim and label it as libel."

"Libel?" Ron said.

"Written defamation," he said.

"And why are you just outright telling us all of this?" Hermione asked.

"Because we're getting sick of it when you guys try to spy on us and can't," the genius said to the now sheepish wizards. He looked up at the trees above them. "Shino. Come back out, we're not done here yet."

The silent student returned from out of nowhere a second time.

"Wait, when'd you leave?" Ron asked, remembering Shino jumping out of hiding into the meeting right before he, Harry, and Hermione had been uncovered.

"Why'd you leave?" Harry said.

"...Where you come from?" Hermione asked, puzzled as to how Shino had seemed to have come out of nowhere.

"What did they do with the Makotos?" he asked the Aburame.

"They've been detained. They are probably at the Ministry at this moment, but they haven't come to me for questioning."

Shikamaru frowned. "...Gaara, Ino, and I will go to the Ministry of Magic today through Dumbledore's Floo network. Gaara will threaten military action towards Britain because of this libel and the fact that because the Makotos are certified alchemists in your country and that the Ministry had just arrested one of the Sand's top producers of military gear and supplies."

"Why can't I go?" Temari asked, further irritated by the fact that Ino and Shikamaru worked together than the couple themselves.

"Your talents lie elsewhere," he said vaguely. She glared. In other words, she was useless in situation like this.

"What about the fact that the Makotos don't have special permits to make things here, let alone even _be_ here?" Kiba asked.

"That's where Ino comes in," Shikamaru said. Ino nodded, understanding the mission Shikamaru assigned to her. "She's going to make up the documents, possess a record keeper at the Ministry, and give the Makotos licenses."

"You can possess people?" Ron said, looking shocked.

Ino rolled her eyes. "Close enough. 'Possess' is the simpler and much shorter way of putting it," she said.

"And why are you going?" Naruto asked Shikamaru.

"I can think flexibly," he said, shrugging. "If something comes up, I'll be there with an excuse. Plus, I already have a bit of influence at the ministry. Not enough to sway a minister's word, perhaps, but enough so that people know and respect me."

"How'd you manage that?" Ron asked.

"I'm a genius. I know how to make good impressions."

-

Shino silently sat in the tree nearby the Forbidden Forest, skipping class for the third day in the row, just thinking. He was no longer able to write, with his reputation tarnished. Towards the end of Rita Skeeter's recent and most devastating article, the witch had boldly declared his identity as the free-lance anonymous writer who had been contradicting every word she said with 'misleading evidence'.

Shino was fuming.

_Misleading evidence_?

Contrary to her own, which was not evidence at all, but misleading all the same?

She was able to write. She was able to get rid of all competition. She was able to sneak around without being detected.

And the vile woman had decided to get him out of the way by tarnishing his Aburame name.

Drug dealers, indeed!

His reputation just won't be the same after this event, unless he found himself with a wonderful opportunity to knock _her_ out of the way and find a way to send an equally or more so devastating piece, whether it was in response to her article about him or about something much larger.

But he would settle for a simpler revenge of just ruining her life.

All gloves were coming off.

Really.

They were.

It was much faster to send forth his personal army with his articles of clothing off, revealing the 'pores' in his body—gaping wounds, resulting from the ceremony knighting him a 'host' for insects at a young age, that had long since healed over. Like body piercings to an extreme.

After sending a decent few thousand, half of his personal reserve of tracker bugs, Shino pulled his coats back over his shoulders and pulled the hood over his head. Eventually, they would find her if she was still lingering on the school grounds.

'_There is no way I am letting this woman get away without at least a little bit of payback_,' he thought grimly, roughly poking several stray insects up his sleeve and into the pores of his arm.

'_I am going to get this woman..._'

And whether he knew it or not, he did.

He _so _totally did.

-

Neji returned back to the rest of Hogwarts from the infirmary two week after his attack, dazed and disgruntled, but nevertheless perfectly fine, thanks to the expert care of Poppy Pomfrey.

Of course, he returned only to be immediately swept up in an Tenten's fury as she whopped him across the head and then proceeded to hugging him until he was unconscious from the lack of oxygen. It was meant to be a lesson for Neji, teaching him not to let himself be attacked by a wizard and not to _ever_ scare her like that ever again.

Once free of Tenten's octopus-like grip, he was next subjected to a meeting between himself and the rest of those involved with the Triwizard Tournament, except for Gaara, who was still at the Ministry of Magic, no doubt clawing for the return of his assistant as his paperwork slowly piled up and the orders for more equipment from Sunagakure began to slowly grow in size.

"This is outrageous!" Madame Maxime exclaimed. "This is obviously a sign of a greater scheme! The one assisting my champion had been _attacked_. Someone of Hogwarts is deliberately fixing the results so that they would come out victorious!"

She gave Harry a particularly scathing look.

"In addition, _my_ champion's partner has gone missing for a week now!" Karkaroff exclaimed.

"Actually," Sasuke said, "you might not know where your champion is, but he is perfectly fine."

"And just how would _you_ know about this?" the Durmstrang headmaster said scathingly.

"If you're thinking I ambushed him, I didn't. There would be much greater signs of damage to the environment in general if I had. Believe me. I'll have you know that my girlfriend's best friend's boyfriend is _your_ champion's partner. Plus, my girlfriend, your champion, and a third companion are currently at the Ministry of Magic as witnesses supporting two women who were recently falsely accused of providing students with substances of hallucinogenic qualities."

"And if you were blaming Harry for Neji's attack, well, it wasn't him," Naruto said to the huge woman.

"And you would know this how?" she asked. "Were _you_ present at the event?"

"I was there when I was attacked," Neji said. "Though I don't remember the event at all, I'm _positive _that Naruto had little to do with my attack or Gaara's sudden departure. Naruto, though he is my rival in this tournament, is one of my closest friends. And none of us care so much for the tournament that we are willing to fight each other to the death."

Though it _was_ true that several of those in the group had all attempted to fight each other to the death for smaller, less financially beneficial reasons...

"A fight to the _death_? You weren't found dead, you were _unconscious,_" the headmistress said.

"Yes, true. I'd also like to bring up another topic. I _was _unconscious. Unconscious without a single physical mark on my body. Naruto has no such subtlety, as _everybody_ within a mile's radius of this school knows," he said. "Anyway, my cousin can vouch for all Gryffindors within the Gryffindor Tower. She just happens to know of everything going on in the Gryffindor rooms, and I am _not _overestimating her. Plus, my condition resulting from the attack provides me with personal evidence that the attacker's purpose was not to prevent me from participating in the tournament. I was defeated, and while unconscious, I could have been easily disposed of. But I wasn't killed. I was rendered unconscious. Unconscious with a spell what will in no way harm my chances of participating, in fact."

"What spell is this?" Fleur asked immediately.

"Though one may have the right to ask certain questions in a situation similar to this, this is personal medical information that may only be discussed among family, close friends, and perhaps medical consultants," he said.

"Nevertheless!" Karkaroff said angrily. "Because of the recent obstacles that Hogwarts' _rival_ schools are facing, I demand some compensation: voice in the decisions to come—"

"No," Crouch said immediately.

"But you didn't even hear me out—"

"Did I say 'no' too quietly? _No_," the man said.. "Are you, a _headmaster_, questioning the authority of that of a judge in the tournament, with the status as a high Ministry official?"

Karkaroff didn't say anything.

"Perhaps he cannot question a higher authority," Jiraiya said, "but I think you and I share relatively equal authority, both of us being judges in this tournament and politically powerful people in our homelands. It wouldn't hurt you to listen to the man's request..."

"_Thank _you, sir," Karkaroff said, with a large, crooked grin on his face.

"...and _then_ refuse."

"...I would like to change the dates of the upcoming events of the Triwizard Tournament," he grumbled, pretending not to hear the last part of Jiraiya's comment.

"No."

"As perfect as that blunt refusal was," Jiraiya said with a grin, "I have to say that that was a perfectly fine idea. Dates are easy things to reschedule in events like this."

"Mr. Jiraiya, you may be a judge, but you lack the authority to change the dates of the second and third task," Mr. Crouch insisted.

"We'll just be moving it one week ahead," the man insisted. "The sooner all of these are over with, the sooner I'll be able to go back home and relax."

"Your personal comfort is of no importance to them," he said.

"Hm..." Jiraiya looked around the room. "May I speak in private with Mr. Crouch for a moment? It will be a short one, I promise," he said. "Though the champion's may have no real need to return for the rest of the meeting. They will be told what concerns them. Everything else will just be old people talk."

"Wait, but—" Naruto protested as Jiraiya started nudging him out of the room.

"No buts!"

"But what are you going to d—"

"I said no buts!"

The next thing he knew, Naruto, as well as the rest of the shinobi and the champions, were outside of the door, with several of the headmasters aside them as well.

"What was _that _about?" Sasuke asked Naruto, since the blond knew his former teacher the best.

"Jiraiya's probably going to try to bribe the judge into moving the dates for the tournament up a bit," Naruto explained.

"Why?" Neji asked.

"You know how he is," Naruto said, giving his friends a certain look to make sure they knew what he meant. "He misses the _sights _back at home."

"_Oh_."

They all understood now. It made sense after all.

Jiraiya had been trying to get out of his position as a judge the moment he found out that the bathrooms of nearly all magical facilities had passwords to them.

-

"Are you _sure _you didn't see anything?" Neji asked his cousin for the umpteenth time.

"I'm sorry," Hinata said, looking rather disappointed in herself. "Whatever happened that day, you were out of range."

He sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"So do you remember anything that happened that night?" Sakura asked. "Anything at all?"

"The only thing I remember from that entire _day_ was falling down the stairs, and I have no idea why the hell I was falling down the stairs because _shinobi do not roll down stairs!_" he said, looking even more so annoyed than usual.

"Well, according to Harry and from what we pieced together from his account of what happened, you threw yourself down the stairs as a distraction," Naruto said. "Smart move, by the way."

It was hard to tell whether Naruto was serious, being sarcastic, or just plain joking around.

"By the way, how do you think Jiraiya convinced Mr. Crouch to change the dates for the tournament? I mean, if was only for a few days ahead of schedule, but he was pretty adamant about keeping the dates the same," Kankurou said.

Naruto snorted. "You haven't figured it out?"

":If I had, I wouldn't have asked."

Naruto grinned. "I spotted Mr. Crouch leaving the castle with one of the first editions of Icha Icha Violence. Get it _now_?"

"_Oh_."

:"Why is it that, like, three out of four old guys we all meet are nasty perverts?" Tenten muttered, shaking her head.

"The Sand is lucky then," Kankurou joked. "Most guys in Sunagakure don't live to grow old."

"Yep," Temari said sarcastically. "So now, instead of nasty, perverted old men who peep in the hotsprings, we have nasty, perverted _young shinobi_ peeping."

"Well, at least since they're younger, you technically have cute guys checking you out."

"Not cute," Temari insisted, shaking her head. "Not when half of them have faces like Kankurou's and half of the remaining have his kind of nose."

"I _like _my nose..."

"Even Gaara has the wide nose, but it's less noticeable..." Sakura said thoughtfully.

"The eyes cancel it out," Tenten said. "I love his eyes. They're kinda scary, but the pretty green cancels it out!"

"Kind of like you with Neji, right?" Temari interjected.

"...Excuse me, ladies, but can we get _back_ on topic here?" Kiba said.

"You're just jealous because out of everyone here, your eyes are the plainest," Temari joked.

"Hey, nobody disses my eyes. _Kankurou_ has the plain eyes. I have the cool slitted eyes. Besides! I don't care about how cool my eyes are. If I had cool eyes, I'd have too many strange girls leaning over in front of me just to get a look at them like with Neji and sometimes Sasuke. I—wait... Damn."

"Okay, since we seem to always be going off topic," Naruto said quickly, "then I have a quick question!"

"What is it?" Sakura asked.

"Does Harry know about the clue for the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament?"

No one said anything.

"Well," the blond said in an upbeat voice. "...Shit."

-

Harry was just... freaking... out.

He had found out from Naruto only about two days ago that, apparently, that _Jiraiya_ had moved the Second Task up about two weeks ahead of schedule. At first, Harry was immediately suspicious of this man's motives, but when he told Naruto of his suspicions, the blond just laughed and brushed it off, explaining the reasons behind Jiraiya's actions to him.

"Maybe the man usually did have something a person out to be suspicious of," Naruto had told him, "but only if you're a girl. Otherwise, you're completely safe!"

From that information, Harry mentally noted himself to warn Hermione and the girls at Hogwarts that there was a pervert amongst them.

Nevertheless, with the second task moved two weeks ahead of schedule, he only had a few hours less than six days to figure out what the tournament clue was. Informing Naruto of the increasing need to find out more about the clue, his partner grinned and agreed, telling him to bring the egg and meet him by the lake after dinner so they could study and to their best to 'crack' it (and they both had to admit, it was a pretty bad pun on Naruto's part).

At the designated meeting spot, Harry sat down with the egg. He gave it an experimental poke, only to have it snap open and scream in his face.

Deciding not to try that trick again, Harry shut the lid tightly and waited for Naruto to make his appearance. He leaned back, closing his eyes in an attempt to relax. Anyway, knowing Naruto, Harry would probably hear him coming a mile away. Not literally though.

Funny thing...

After that disastrous attempt to 'unclog' Harry's "chakra pores", he had been able to hear better, see a bit further (though not enough to be able to toss aside his glasses), smell a bit more keenly, taste things more strongly, and feel the most subtle things.

And now... he could hear faint voices in the air all around him.

Harry's eyes opened as he shot up, looking glancing at his surroundings for the source of the voices. There was no one in sight. It was loudest near the short of the lake, near the trees, the docks, and where the lake was deepest.

He paused.

Oh.

He was hearing snakes. As a parseltongue with slightly enhanced hearing, it made sense that he would hear these voices outside near the woods.

Calming himself and trying to figure out what the egg was a clue for, Harry didn't notice a figure dressed in black until he was directly behind him.

He spun around, seeing a shadow looming over him, with someone dressed as if they were a mugger.

Or, as if stranger was just going to plain attack him.

Which he did, by the way.

"Hey—umph!" Harry said, attempting to shout out when his face was covered, muffling his cries.

There was a brief struggle and Harry kicked the side of the attacker's leg and instantly regretted it, as it seemed to have hurt himself more than the attacker. However it did, at least, put the person off balance.

On the other hand, the man stumbled on Harry's golden egg, falling backward, and ended up with the egg screaming in both their faces...

...until it rolled down the slightly inclined shore and into the water, where it bubbled and sunk into the dark waters.

Neither Harry nor the attacker made another move.

"..."

"..."

"You!" Harry shouted, pulling out his wand, only to have it snatched out of his hands and tossed to the side.

The next thing he knew, the man had picked him up and tossed him bodily into the lake.

_Come seek us where our voices sound.  
We cannot sing above the ground.  
You may open doors if you find these:  
Golden metals that serve as keys.  
An hour long you'll have to look,  
And to recover what we took.  
One clue we give you help you seek:  
To each this one is all unique.  
There's little time, so tarry not,  
Let what you seek stays here to rot.  
But past the hour the prospects black.  
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back._

It was from this near-death experience that Harry learned three things...

One, there was something that was singing under the water, and it probably had something to do with the tournament.

Two, if he didn't come up for air, he would die.

And three, he probably should have learned to hold his breath underwater when he was younger.

Realizing that he was drowning, Harry's arms flailed underwater as he tried to swim up. ...He probably should have learned how to swim as well.

Luckily, though, someone was down there in the water with him.

Several someones.

There must have been, because even though he couldn't see anything through the dark waters, he felt hands grab him and pull him up until he saw the surface of the water above him. The sun illuminated the waters, helping him see. It must have been by some miracle that he didn't lose his glasses.

Either way, with the sound of the egg's song fading away in the water, Harry clawed for the surface when, with his arm reached out, he felt fingers grasping his hand.

He almost began to feel as if there was someone looking out for him when the person on the other side of the arm pulling him, well, pulled him. _Really_ pulled him.

The person pulled him so hard, in fact, that even though Harry was now safe out of the water, he was beginning to regret his sudden emergence from the lake, with his arm dislocated, his body shivering, and his lungs feeling as if they were on fire.

"Harry, are you okay?" Naruto said, hitting Harry on the back after several moments hitting his back as he coughed up water. "You better be, because I refuse to use any CPR..."

"Yeah..." Harry croaked. "...Pulled my arm out of its socket...but...otherwise...fine."

He looked around frantically for the attacker, suddenly aware that they were possibly in danger, but Naruto shook his head.

"You were the only person when I got here," he said.

"You sure...?" Harry asked.

"Yeah. I'm sure."

"We need to tell... Dumbledore," he said, still breathing hard.

"Already sent a Kage Bunshin," Naruto replied. "Dumbledore knows."

After several moments of breathing heavily (after drying himself off with his wand, of course), Harry suddenly remembered the message he had heard underwater.

"Naruto!" he said. "I just remembered. When I was thrown into the water, the egg's screeching wasn't screeching anymore! It become some sort of song or poem."

"Really?" he said brightly, seeming to encourage the shift in subjects. "What did it say?"

"...Um... 'come seek us where our voices sound, we cannot sing above the ground'... something about an hour..." Harry wracked his brain for more of the clue but found himself coming up with nothing.

"...That's all?" Naruto asked.

"I was a bit busy drowning," Harry said defensively "Excuse me if I wasn't paying too much attention to the song!"

"You're forgiven," the blond said with a grin. "Those two lines are enough to figure out the basics of the next task anyway."

"Really?"

"Easy," he said. "You hear the voices under water. You need to look for something under water. The 'above the ground' clue just supports the first line. And 'an hour long you'll have to look' means that you have to find something within the hour."

While Harry probably could have figured out the clues given a moment to think, he was surprised and impressed by Naruto's quick thinking and mental abilities. Maybe, all this time, he had underestimated the blond.

Naruto seemed downright casual about the whole ordeal, even though Harry felt rather guilty, considering the fact that he had just lost their clue to the next task. Still, there was now one last thing he would have to tell Naruto.

"For the next task, there's still one problem."

"Naw, we could probably handle it," he said. "I'm good underwater too."

"I'm not."

"Well, I don't think you'll get attacked under there any time soon. Not by anything that I can't handle, anyway."

"It's not that," Harry said.

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know how to swim."

-

"_What are you doing_?" Sakura screamed, staring at Naruto and Harry.

"Teaching," he said simply. "He can't swim."

"_Don't teach people like that_!"

It was the morning after Harry was attacked and Naruto found out Harry couldn't swim. The two were both in the shallow area of the lake where the water didn't even reach past Naruto's knees. Sakura had been walking by, reading a letter from Gaara, a response after she informed him of the change of dates (which included a promise to return to Hogwarts earlier), when she spotted Naruto repeatedly dunking Harry's head in the lake as the wizard's arms flailed wildly.

Picking Harry's head out of the water and shoving Naruto to the side, she glared at them both.

"What the hell do you two think you're doing?" she demanded again as Harry spat out several gallons of water.

"I told you, I'm trying to teach him how to swim!" he said.

"By _drowning_ him?" she said incredulously, wondering just who taught Naruto how to swim.

"He wasn't going to die. A little lack of oxygen never killed anyone," Naruto said, waving a hand dismissively. "Besides, I wasn't _keeping_ his head under the water. I was just doing it for only a few seconds or minutes at a time. Repeatedly."

"And you _agreed_ to this torture?" Sakura asked Harry with obvious disbelief. The wizard nodded, and she hit them both hard enough to send them both splashing in the lake, skirting across the surface like human skipping stones.

"_Idiots_!" Sakura muttered.

Moments later, Naruto and Harry found themselves greeted by the beautiful sight of Sakura in a bathing suit, after having transfigured her robes.

"Quit drooling, Naruto. Hinata wouldn't kill you, but _I_ might," she said to him, and then she turned to face Harry. "And how on earth can you not swim?"

"It's not that I completely can't swim," Harry admitted. "I'm just not too great at it. ...and I can't hold my breath under water for more than a few seconds."

His aunt and uncle never gave him swimming lessons. They probably were hoping that he would drown one day, anyway.

Sakura smiled at his slight embarrassment. "Well that's a start," she said.

A week later, most of the shinobi were in the water, splashing each other as Sakura _properly_ taught Harry how to swim.

"What are you all _doing_?" someone asked incredulously. Sakura perked up at the familiar voice.

"Gaara! Hi!" she said cheerfully. "You going to join in?"

"...You _do_ realize it's close to freezing temperature, right?" Shikamaru asked, standing behind the shinobi of the Sand.

"And you're wearing a bikini," Gaara added.

"Yeah. You like?"

"That's besides the point."

"It's called a heating charm!" Sakura said with amused laughter. "We end up renewing it every few minutes, but it's worth it. Sort of."

"Right..."

"Come on in and join us. If you aren't going to join in, you could sit on the side with Neji. He's too _perfect_ to swim in the water with us."

"I never claimed to be perfect," Neji commented on the side.

"But you think so anyway, don't you?" Tenten asked.

"Well..."

"You better not deny it. I'm don't date any shinobi who's less than perfect," she said warningly. Neji smirked.

"Well then I guess I should admit I'm as flawless as you all believe I am to be."

"Yeah," Kiba said. "Especially with your three hundred and _fifty-nine_ degree vision."

"And the fact that you got your ass whooped by some wizard and a memory charm, and you don't even know who it is," Naruto added.

"Not to mention," Gaara said, "how you're still messed up in the head by it."

"You too?" Kiba said to Gaara as Naruto forced the redhead into a high-five.

"...You guys are just jealous," the Hyuuga muttered, starting to sulk, mainly for Tenten's amusement.

"Jealous my ass," Kiba said, grinning mischievously with Naruto as their arms suddenly grabbed Neji by the ankles and pulled him into the water.

"_Bast_—!"

The next thing everyone knew, Neji had dragged himself back onto the docks, resembling a soaking cat with a glare to match. "I'm going to get you for this," he said in response to everyone's laughter. "All of you."

Gaara stared at the dark waters, after casting a warming charm and discarding his heavier clothing. He experimentally poked the water as bits of sand rose to the surface. He pressed his hand on the surface of the thin layer as more grains of sand from the sand rose and thickened the thin surface.

"What are you doing?" Naruto asked him.

"Experimenting," he said simply, lifting his hand and forming a hollow dome with the sand. Harry watched with interested, having never seen Gaara use his techniques in plain sight for him to be able to see.

Suddenly, Gaara pushed his sand dome deep down in the water.

He looked up. "Yeah," he said simply. "I know what I'm doing for the tournament."

"That was fast," Harry said.

"Man, Harry and I still have to practice on our swimming, and you don't have to get in the water at all?" Naruto asked, climbing onto the docks to sit next to Gaara.

"I'll probably have to go under anyway," the redhead shrugged. "I don't want to be the spotlight, being the only one who doesn't swim in the wat—"

Naruto laughed, shoving Gaara into the Black Lake.

All of the shinobi were silent with shock, awe, and an immense fear as they all waited for some sort of sandy retribution.

When the sand gourd, which was left behind Gaara, didn't completely obliterate the blond, everyone began laughing. Even Sakura, who was concerned for both Naruto's life and Gaara's pride, giggled.

And then paused.

"..._Any _time now," she said slowly, waiting for her boyfriend to surface as a feeling of apprehension began to grow in her chest.

"Um..." Harry looked around nervously. "Guys?" They all turned around to face him.

"...Yeah?"

"Didn't you all mention that... Gaara lived in the desert once?" he asked.

"...Yeah."

"There... probably isn't a lot of water in the desert... right? No... seas. Oceans. Beaches. Pools."

"...Yeah."

"So... do you think Gaara knows how to swim?"

"..."

Sakura screamed.

"_OH MY GOD_!"

-

Despite their initial fear at Gaara's submergence, the day ended with a rather exciting end, when all of the sand in the entire Black Lake rose to the surface to bring almost everyone down with him. The only two survivors of Gaara's violent but far from fatal attack were Sakura, whom he had thoughtfully neglected in his underwater assault, and Harry, who just happened to be with Sakura at the time when all of the sand reached up around everyone's ankles and dragged them under.

Shikamaru could probably be considered a survivor as well, considering the fact that the sand didn't manage to drag him underwater like the others. Of course, he felt it was too troublesome to get into the water and instead chose to stay out of the lake, so he didn't really count.

After that, it was utter chaos. Gaara's actions started a free-for-all war, with water splashing everywhere on everyone. A war that ended Sasuke's usual overreaction to everything, nearly frying everyone in the lake with his Chidori until Ino 'distracted' him, saving everyone's life at the expense of Sasuke's now injured ego.

Let's just say, Sasuke suffered a severe amount of blood loss during that swimming session and the next time they went to swimming, he'd have to have her wearing a bikini with a harder-to-remove top. Not that he minded Ino's method of distraction, but Sasuke wasn't accustomed to suffering a bloody nose.

"Well..." Naruto said slowly to Harry. "Now that you know how to swim... we have two days left to figure out how to get us both to swim underwater for an hour."

"...Yeah," Harry said, starting to feel sick to his stomach. Not only did they have to figure out how to swim underwater for at least an hour, but they had to figure out the puzzle to the second task.

He paused when he heard Naruto mumbling something, and then realized that he was reciting some poem under his breath.

"_You may open doors if you find these:  
Golden metals that serve as keys.  
An hour long you'll have to look,  
And to recover what we took.  
One clue we give you help you seek:  
To each this one is all unique.  
There's little time, so tarry not,  
Let what you seek stays here to rot.  
But past the hour the prospects black.  
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back."_

Harry stared at Naruto with a feeling of realization and shock that sickened him to his stomach.

"You... _memorized_ it," he said, amazed. "The entire thing."

"Hehe, yeah, I did," Naruto said, scratching his head with a fake look of modesty, though he was definitely feeling very proud of himself.

"...I _lost_ the egg," he said. "You never got a chance to borrow it or figure the egg out..."

Naruto paused, something flickering in the back of his eye. "I borrowed Neji's, actually," he said. "Special favor. Going out with Hinata helped a lot more than I expected. The perks of going out with Hinata—I can technically boss Neji around, so long as he doesn't try and kill me."

It sounded like a plausible excuse.

Heck, it _was_ a plausible excuse.

But the entire world knew that Naruto couldn't lie for his life.

"You... knew the puzzle all along," Harry said thoughtfully, listing all of his 'evidence' out loud for Naruto to hear. "_Before_ all of this. But you didn't tell me. You let me lose the egg—no, you _made_ me lose the egg..."

One thing led to another in his mind, and Harry finally came up with the final piece of the puzzle.

"_You tried to drown me!_"

"I didn't know you didn't know how to swim...!"

"_IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER OR NOT I KNOW HOW TO SWIM IF YOU HOLD MY HEAD UNDERWATER_!"

-

"I think," Naruto muttered, rubbing the figurative lump on his head, "that I pissed Harry off."

"So?" Sasuke shrugged.

"...Well, I pissed him off. I made him angry. He's annoyed with me now."

"Grudges don't usually last too long," the Uchiha said.

"Oh _you're_ one to talk," the blond snorted.

Just _who_ was it who held a childhood grudge on his brother for killing his family, again? Who _still_ had that grudge over the years?

Oh yeah.

_Uchiha Sasuke!_

Of course, Naruto didn't voice his thoughts out loud, in fear that saying the dreaded I-word—the taboo name—would send Sasuke off on another tangent, raving about his brother and such.

"_Still_," he said loudly, changing the subject, "I haven't figured out how we're going to get Harry to swim now. He's decent and knows out to hold his breath and push himself through the water, but an hour? None of us could probably hold our heads under water for that long."

"You're a wizard. Well... sort of. Figure it out."

"What are _you _going to do?" Naruto asked him.

"Bubble head charm," Sasuke said easily. "Cedric and I, as well as Neji and Fleur, are going to use it."

"...Oh."

"You're not going to use it, are you?" That was more of a statement than a question.

"Nope."

"And if you don't find any other way to hold your breath for an hour?" Sasuke inquired.

"Well... then only as a last resort," he said. "If you guys are doing the same thing, then you don't get points for creativity. Eh, hopefully I'll figure something out on my own then..."

Sasuke shrugged. "I kind of figured you'd say something like that," he said, not really caring to even look up from his book. "That's why I didn't bother to avoid telling you what Cedric and I are doing for the tournament."

"Ah, you guys are talking about the tournament?" Kiba said enthusiastically, practically coming out of nowhere to wrap an arm around Naruto's neck in a brotherly fashion. "What a coincidence! I was just thinking about something. Come on, Naruto."

"Wha—hey!" Naruto protested as Kiba pulled him away from Sasuke, backward.

They left the library where Naruto had been latching himself onto Sasuke as Kiba and Akamaru strolled down the hallway until they reached the Hogwarts grounds.

"What are we doing?"

"Reminiscing," Kiba said, heading for the lake with Akamaru by his side, carrying an incredibly huge loaf of bread behind him.

They sat by a tree next to the lake, relaxed in the grass as Kiba began tearing the bread into smaller pieces.

"Doesn't this seem a bit, um, ...too close for comfort even figuratively and as friends?" Naruto asked as Kiba tossed the bread chunks into the water.

"Oh look, the giant squid. Doesn't this bring back memories?" Kiba said conversationally, ignoring the blond's words.

"...No."

"Oh." Kiba frowned suddenly, his chipper 'let's-reminisce-a-memory' mood instantly dead. "Oh _yeah_... you weren't there."

"I wasn't where?"

"While you were at the chuunin exams, I had a bad Herbology lesson," Kiba said, scratching his head.

"So?"

"Hm..." Kiba mumbled unintelligible words to himself as the gears in his head began to grind once again. "This isn't going to work..."

"What's not going to work? Kiba, what on earth are you talking about?"

"I've had it with English," Kiba said, removing his headband. "_You too. Take that off_," he said in Japanese. Naruto took his own hitai-ate off as well. "_Too keep things brief, we still haven't figured out how Rita Skeeter is getting in Hogwarts to spy on us, so I can't give you and clues that she could pick up. I don't _think_ she knows Japanese, but I didn't want to risk it. Anyway, you have a short amount of time left before the second task, and I have a newer way for you to go underwater without doing the same thing as Neji and Sasuke."_

"_How did you manage it_?" Naruto asked.

"_I don't know the name of it in Japanese, actually," Kiba said. "And if I say it in English, anyone hearing will realize later that I'm helping you, and you'll be disqualified._"

"_Well then I'll just figure it out by myself,_" Naruto said.

Kiba snorted. "_It'll take you forever to figure something out. You only work well at the last minute, so just listen to me. Go to Professor Sprout and ask about a plant that helps you breath underwater._"

"_They _have_ things like that here_?" Naruto asked.

"_If they have plants that scream and knock you out, then there's got to be one that turns you into the human fish, right?_" Kiba said with a grin. "_When you were gone for the Chuunin exams, I ate a bit of gillyweed and ended up growing gills and nearly suffocating on air._"

"_Smart, Kiba_," Naruto said with a grin. "_Just smart_."

"_I know_," the Inuzuka said. "_I'm a _genius."

"_Yep. Because all geniuses must eat some sort of questionable plant at least once in their lifetime_."

"_Exactly_."

-

The green house suddenly shook with a horrified cry of unadulterated horror.

"_YOU GAVE IT TO WHO?_"

"I gave them all to _Professor Snape_," Professor Sprout repeated with an irritated look, tending to the shrieking dandelions. "Now please leave. You're disturbing my plants."

"Crap," Kiba muttered angrily as the two left the greenhouse. "There's no way in hell that Snape is going to let us just walk away with his Gillyweed."

"_And_ he cast a spell over his cabinet so that whenever we open the cabinet for his private ingredients, he would know," Naruto said.

"And how would _you_ know that?" the Inuzuka asked him.

Naruto grinned. "Well, you remember the time when all the Slytherins found tiny eyeballs in their porridge...?"

Kiba coughed and couldn't hold back his laughter. "I _knew_ it!" he exclaimed. "That it was either you or the Fred and George!" He bowed jokingly to the blond. "Brilliance, Naruto. You _reek_ of _brilliance_."

"Thank you, thank you..." Naruto said, puffing up his chest proudly. "But still, he doesn't allow students to just get up and take things without permission, so we—"

Naruto stopped dead in his tracks.

"_I'm brilliant_!" he exclaimed suddenly, running off and leaving Naruto and Akamaru in the dust.

"...?" Kiba and Akamaru looked at the blond's retreating back. Kiba shook his head and the two chased after him. "H-hey! Wait up, you idiot! At least tell me what you're planning...!"

Moments later, Kiba was tailing Naruto down the halls as they descended staircases, going deeper and deeper into the castle until they were sprinting in the dungeons.

"Naruto..." Kiba whined, covering his nose from the foul scent that came both from the filthy, uncleaned hallways and the ingredients from the potions classrooms. The musty odor flooded the noses of even those without the sensitive senses. Kiba, with his sensitive smell, never when down to the dungeons outside of classes, and sometimes not even then. "What the heck are we doing down here? Snape hates everyone, and us in particular. There's no way in hell that he's going go, 'Oh hello there! Top of the morning to you! Would you like some Gillyweed? I have some spares that I haven't smoked up yet!'"

Naruto snorted. "We don't need his permission to go through his potions cabinet."

"Uh, earth to Naruto: _yes, we do_."

"Ever heard of the world-famous quote: 'what's yours is mine and what's mine is mine'...?" a lilting voice said, echoing into the halls of the dungeon.

"Gaaah!"

Worse than any other being in existence... Before the two stood the very woman who lived to push people to their limits.

"_Anko_!" Naruto said cheerfully. "You know, that's a quote for couples, right?"

"Ah, well Sevvie-poo and I are couple enough," she said with a shrug. "No matter where he goes, he can't get rid of me. That automatically gives us _some sort_ of relationship at least."

"Why would you want a relationship with _that_ guy?" Kiba asked incredulously.

"Connections, kid. It's all about the connections," she said, grinning and patting Kiba on the head condescendingly. "Which it why you wanted to see me, isn't it?" she asked. "Now tell me, Naruto, what do you want today?"

"You know me well," Naruto said with a grin.

"You're still the same brat from chuunin exams," Anko asid. "You always underestimate me, dontcha? Doesn't take much to figure out why you of all people would come running down to the dungeons, of all places, knocking down all the students who got in your way. Mister Zabini was knocked down the staircase by some sort of 'mysterious figure running at an inhuman speed'."

"Mister _who_?"

"Ah, just some nonexistent kid. No one ever notices the poor guy... in fact, I didn't even know he existed until I found him half-dead at the bottom of the staircases, no thanks to you two little brats. Anyway, no one comes down to the dungeons without a goal in mind, and I think I know what it is you want," she said to Naruto. She squinted at Kiba and Akamaru. "But why are _you_ here...?"

"...Good question," Kiba muttered, still holding a hand over his nose.

"Anko, I need you to do me a _huge_ favor!" Naruto said, pressing his hands together and putting on the most 'adorable' face that he could muster.

"I believe we already established that," she said. "What is it?"

"There's something I need for the second task in the Triwizard tournament thing," Naruto said. "A potions ingredient, actually. Professor Sprout gave some to Snape just a few weeks ago after she finished growing them. It's called gillyweed."

"And you want me to grab some for you?" she asked.

"Just maybe two handfuls," Naruto said.

Anko grinned. "And I thought you had something interesting and _new_ for me to do."

"Are you going to do it?" Kiba asked.

Anko shrugged. "I have a soft spot for demonic little brats with a talent for creating havoc. Reminds me of a time when I was just an innocent young girl," she said, ignoring Kiba's muffled snort, finding it hard that a fiend like her was ever innocent. "Actually, I was fixing to mess around in his potions cabinet before you asked me to grab some gillyweed anyway."

"Somehow, I'm not surprised..." Naruto said.

"Watch it, blondie," Anko said with a smirk. "I might refuse to break into his potions cabinet if you give me an _attitude_ about it."

"You wouldn't refuse. You were going to do it without me asking anyway."

"Touché."

"Well, if you're going to be messing with Snape's ingredients, don't eat the gillyweed," Kiba warned lightheartedly as a joke.

"Aw... I really did want to sample some of the stuff. It'd drive Sevvie-poo up the wall if I did..." Anko pouted as she turned to walk away. She turned around but paused, craning her neck over her shoulder to look a bit more closely.

"Wait a minute, are you serious?" Kiba said.

Anko turned around, looking over her shoulder with a bewildered look on her face. "Weren't _you_?"

"..."

"...Huh?"

Confused, both parties decided to drop the subject and parted ways, Naruto, Kiba, and Akamaru to get out of the dungeons, and Anko to find out where Severus had decided to stash his potions and ingredients from her this week.

-

**Review Responses**

**Jade**: _"Why aren't there any fucking girls int he tournament!" _  
Personally? I had an excuse. I don't remember. It's been a while since I've written, but I do remember reading this review and going, "oh, because this and that". ...It might have been because I wasn't exactly sure how the girls would be able to use their own techniques in the second task. Maybe it's that, because I do remembering being extremely frustrated about the second task at one point. Are you mad at me...? ;-;

**iopiuss**: _"Uh... someone stole your story again... w w w . f i c w a d . c o m / s t o r y / 9 3 6 7 8 "  
..._AGAIN?! Thank you for the warning and, possibly, for reporting the story.

**KakashiPwnsAllUNoobs**: _"OMG at first when I saw your (awsome) story I was all like "WTF?! 30 LONG chapters!" and then it looked like you finished it or gave up on it since u haven't updated for a long time and then you suddenly post chapter 31 and then I'm like "WTF! another chapter!" but I'm glad your continuing the story cuz it rocks but then again i'm still on chapter 24 ((I'm on 24?! I thought i was on 16 or something Oo)) so I'm like "F! I gotta read more to catch up. I didn't read this chapter yet but I'm gonna read 10X faster so i can read this chap! Keep reviewing (faster! super Gaara death glare)"_  
Man, and the gap between that last chapter and this new one... even bigger. Anyway, thank you for the review! The next chapter should be coming up soon, and sorry about the wait.

**celtic-pride**: _"sweet chapter. I love how Ino kept failing to imitate the people, it was funny. AS for the gymnast thing thats ok i couldn't if it was weird it would be cool. I'm not really a gymnast guy anyway, although i do take karate so maybe in the future i could probably pull off a triple backflip. Funny thing, __i had to go to the reviews to see what i wrote to see what you were talking about. Man i can remember so much other stuff in like math and history yet i can't remember what i wrote for a review. Well can't wait for either the next chapter for this story or for Stranded, which ever one you get out first. Well good writing."  
_Thanks! The next chapter should be coming up soon, and sorry about the wait.

**Er, you'll know. Hopefully.**: _I thought you were gonna use my idea with Neji falling into the step to prevent dodging...or did I miss it...Or did you just fall asleep for another 4 hour nap and forget? Rawr...  
_Honestly...? I can't remember you. Or anything. ;-; It even took my a while to remember what Neji was dodging and why. I'm _SO_ sorry! It's been a over year now, and I barely remember anything about this story...! Please forgive me! Seriously! ;-;

**randomgirl**: _"You are a crossover god/goddess. There are very few crossovers I'm willing to read for this long, mainly because they tend to peter our around chpater 5 or 6. But not yours. I will admit that i am hoked on this story and will not stop reading it until the final chapter! Ja ne!"  
_Heh, wait til you see my other project...

**dangerousanddemonicdevil**: _"I loved Neji's scence!! u had meh rolling on the floor with laughter...damn mad-eye..wait its crouch..keep mixing them up..and im adoring Anko in your fic alot she's sorta like meh wit her hyperly happy mood and love to tease others..yay!!hehe hickey..if it really was a hickey then it would make orochi-chan the phedophile...o.0  
sry going off topic...the ShikaTem was great it matches them perfectly and im sure any girl would be acting the same if their man was spending more time with another woman...anyways ill shut up now with my last words..UPDATE UR GR8 FIC!!with more GaaSaku!!XD"  
_Anko is one of the greatest minor characters in Naruto, I think.

**anon**: _"You really have the ages screwed up and I'm not talking about kankuro you've already cleared that up. Im talking about the authors note at the end. Kurenai and Asuma are the same age (26) and so is kakashi remember kurenai has not been a jounin for long. Shizune's age is undetermined as of now but I would assume she is below 30. You had the rest about right"  
_Personally, I don't know what you're talking about. Not only have I not read or written in about a year, but I haven't read past chapters since the day I posted them. Sorry. Anyway, I just looked it up. Kurenai and Asuma are 30, and Kakashi is twenty-nine. Don't forget that the first series was at least a year long, and then there's the 2 and a half year gap between the first series and Shippuuden (or however you spell it, I'm a bit tired right now).

**aznelemants**: _"nicee. an update! Hm..no real critique here, so im gonna attempt to see the future! woo  
Spell sent at Neji: memory charm, to avoid any suspicion bout dead/missing students and whatnot  
bright flas of light: Neji used kaiten, which did something to the spell, but not deflect. Hence, Neji's brain is really messed up (amnesia?)  
Future: Ninja try to get Neji to remember stuffz, and possibly figure out whats going on from Harry's clues"  
_Mostly right ;D

**darkflame**: _"...neither do I. I can't remember what the "gayness" was all about. ... Yes, I am insane. Or just sleep deprived. So we shall chuck the subject into the pits of spam and forget about it! chucks and hears a explosion ... runs At any rate, another chapter in which I may ROFL. Yay! :D I await the next chapter! :D"_  
And I can't remember what the heck was going on in this conversation. Consider it chucked. -it, apparently, explodes- ...What the _hell_ did we put in that conversation?

**Yes, it is Kumoriha Sama now**: _...Are you back yet? Have you started at all with the next chapter? And what of Stranded? Can I have a cookie? (Actually I don't really like cookies...I'll take chocolate instead)_  
...I'm baaack! Sorry about the long wait. And I keep seeing you online but haven't had the opportunity to make an IM (lame excuse, but kinda true, sorry).

**fantasy dreamer**: _"that a great story you have going their my favorite part is the ones with Gaara and when Naruto asked Hinata to the dance, Oh and the training sessions.Plus the times Gaara loses his temper. and that their going to make Malfoy's life a living hell. Well anyway i hope you write the next Chapter soon."_  
Thanks! Sorry about the wait! Really!

**Moi**: _"I think he was hitting on me." hahahaha hilarous XD  
By the way, if you feel like editing your chapter...  
"Qu'avez-vous dit? Cela était espagnol..." should be "Qu'avez-vous dit? C'était de l'espagnol, là...", and "Nn...Le quel est? Qu'est-il arrivé?" should be something like "Nn... Que-quoi...? Que s'est-il passé?"  
Bon chapitre, comme d'habitude ;)  
(good chapter, as always)"  
_One year ago, I would have edited that mistake. Now, I'm too tired. ;-; Sorry. But thanks for the suggestion! I really really really appreciate it! Seriously! (("sorry" and "seriously" ...I seem to be saying that a lot, much to my dismay...)) Love you! SO much! Thanks for the review and the help!

**set jerro**: _"good chappy took to long clings and shakes where did you go? tears this is the only fic im reading any more i thought u left me all alone. never do it again..."  
_Ooh, I can only imagine what you're going to say now. x.x

**IdontWannaLogInRightNow**: _"His head his the table with a loud 'thunk'.  
"Praise the lord!" Theodore Nott exclaimed, throwing his arms up in the air. "The gods have shut him up!"  
0.0 I started laughing all evil like, and I think now my brother believe I am insane ("  
_You might be insane. You enjoy this story. ...Then again, I enjoyed that part and stuff too.

**Too lazy to get an account**...: _"O...M...G. You updated!! actually, i saw this thing on Sunday while finally starting your fic Stranded(which is pretty good btw), bt didn't have time to review. Today, I started spazzing because I had a snow day and I can read fanfics! I actually also want to make an account and make some fics that I have ideas on, but I decided not to. Prepare for a super long review!  
The fic you mentioned that plagiarized yours actually sounds a bit interesting(cause it has Kakashi XD)but you should just report Akatsuki and let the administration do what they think is best.  
It's interesting how...severe a reaction the shinobi had to Hagrid's birth thingie, but at least they just had a potion, tho I wonder why Hagrid's mom would want to do that. and poor Kiba-kun! all of Ino's screw-ups were hilarious. Oh, and Sevvie-poo got 2 presents for Anko! how caring. Their relationship's really weird. Sevvie-poo, Gred,and Forge are my fav characters in HP. Cedric's hitting on Harry and Madoka meets Malfoy. Interesting. but I wonder what Kuro-kun is planning.The Hagrid and Naruto scene is funny, not to mention the Rita and Shino scene. The Shikatame scene is a bit random tho. and Neji seems slightly...crazy.  
Then there's the cliffe! how can such an evil thing exsist! and I thought all that extra space in the bottom was some more of the fic...but at least you know you have a lot of fans, including me ;)  
Ah, I love this fic! but seriously, please don't go on another hiatus like that again. Happy Valentines's day!"  
_...Way to make me feel bad. ;-; And I can't believe they did that to our favorite characters... It's been months, and I'm still distraught.

**Theworldisendingsoshutupandeat**: _"Whoa. Is Neji dead? TTTT I hope not."  
_Absolutely not. This is the wrong story for character deaths. And thank god for that.

**GirlLoki**: _"I was gonna tell you that he was a pethetic loser who couldn't write so much as a decent ficlet let alone finde his own arse with both hands and a flashlight! This sorry exuse for a person shouldn't bitch about somthing he has no talent in! Sure, there are some pairings that I don't agree with (like Gaa/Sak) but it dosn't mean that I should totally hate any fic that has it. Gaa/Sak is not only hard to write, but also harder to visualise, given the cercomstances of some fics. (Like when she's an abassitor or when he's a reangade...PLEASE!) But there are some (like you) that can totally pull it off and these people should be congratulated for their meraculus work.  
He should totally suck dick.  
Also good work on this chapter too. I hope you don't give this fic up because you like like 'Stranded' better. All your hard work shouldn't go to waist because you lost interest. This story is totally kickass and we love it to bits. (We being me, Amberfox and Lyell. Go see thier fics! AmberfoxandLyell!)  
Well, that's off MY cheast. I hope that bastare dosn't flame you ever again. "  
_:D Love you!

**imafraididonthaveanaccount**: _"i'll have you know that its gonna take me forever to read your story. while i may be reviewing on the last chapter, i have only read chapter 1. you see, im not actually allowed to read fanfiction all day, so i copy and paste it to word, then read it in my room. XD so when i do finish, maybe i'll review again, maybe not. but the first chapter rocked so much i had to drop in a note. NGTH is also highly recommended by several of my friends. so you rock. don't get too stuck, kk?"  
_Haah, same here. But I don't print it out or anything. Thanks for the review! And sorry about the wait!

**Aly**: _"...Hurry up a friggin' update! D:"  
_-hurries-

**rita**: _"Aa that's not fair! Bad cliffie, bad cliffie! please update! I beg you dear author! it's too good to leave on that note!"  
_Sorry, sorry, sorry! ;-;

**Shinobi Soul Reaper**: _"This story is awesome and I can't wait until you update. I discovered this like 3 weeks ago and couldn't stop reading it and didn't read any of my other stories because how good this was. Long chapters are the way to go. I know I should've reviewed for the other chapters but I didn't want to take the time to write them out. I WANTED TO READ MORE!I can't wait till stranded is updated too"  
_Meh, I don't mind delayed reviews. I'll update Stranded soon.

**nightDREAMERms a.k.a Anime-Fan**: _"YEAH! I finally got an account on here! And can't wait for chpt.34 (PS. Im not that good at battle scenes so whatever you make will no doubt put me in awe -.)Nice chappie, update as soon as you can!"  
_Oh god... I can't remember what was supposed to happen in chapter thirty-four. Please tell me you remember! It's been a year! Oh god! (falls down and cries)

**Kumoriha – SAMA**: _"Stop being EMO and come of of your hidey hole._

_Emo, antisocial, same thing.  
Rawr. By the way, update, talk to me, whatever.  
Rawr. Again."  
_Sob sob sob... (cuts) I'm sorry...! Lol. Whenever I have time to talk, I think you're already sleeping. It's usually pretty late when I finish my work (it always takes me a long time to work since I'm always fooling around, playing minesweeper or solitaire or whatever).

**Disgusted**: _"I am never taking a video recommendation from you again. That worthless drivel wasted a precious minute and a half of my life, and I cannot believe that anyone can consider BIRDS DYING as a tragedy, unless your income depends on said birds."  
_Oh _shit_. I am SO sorry. Really really sorry! Every time I see this review, I cringe. I didn't think someone would take me seriously! I mentioned that BECAUSE it was an IQ-point-killing video. It's SUPPOSED to be stupid (for us; that girl was honestly seriously taking it seriously...)! I am SO sorry! Did anyone _else_ take this seriously?-! I'm sorry if anyone else did! Really sorry!

**Too lazy to get an account...**: _"It's me again! :D Happy (17th) Birthday Yarochisai lol I actually saw it on your account and remembered. I hope you had a good one (and that you remembered it too. Do well on finals) ...I feel kinda akward being a stranger and saying happy birthday, but that how much I love you and your writing ;D  
Now, I said that my last review was gonna be really long. But it wasn't. So the next time you update, I PROMISE to leave a longer one! Isn't that a good incentive? And...I might actually get an account! Which means I can actually review you like...I have an account! :D I make no snese"  
_I feel so loved. (heart) ...Yet kind of sad that I am _now_ responding to a "Happy Seventeenth Birthday" only a few days before my eighteenth. Sorry if I made you feel awkward for the past year. ;-; And I could've sworn I responded to a review from you... Probably just another one. My brian is mush right now.

**Vividly Mesmerized**: _"Hello there, just finished reading the whole fanfic, and I enjoyed it.  
I like your pairings, specially GaaraxSakura. You pull it off well, I may become a fan of the pairing just because of this fic. XD  
If Neji is hitted by a memory charm (predictable, kinda), maybe he can go back to his old self, you know, where he becomes a fate-decided-for-us-we-can't-change-it type of person, that'll be kinda interesting...  
Update soon, please!"  
_Hm... I never really considered that possibility... :)

**thing**: _"it is so cool.:) great story"  
_Thank you!

**Hina-Hime**: _"Ok,I've read this story a hundred times and I love it!I just had to give a long review!!Ok!  
First i love all your parings!Even the Ino/Sasuke one!So updates are most welcome to all your fans!i shower you with update cakes and update cookies,because this story is the best!  
Second,the humor is good,REALLY GOOD!I love all the funny bits with Madoka and Voldemort/Lucius/Wormtail.I also love all the parts with Anko annoying Snape to the end of his wits!  
The chunnin exams are good the more times you read them.I wonder for the second task,who will be taken from the shinobi champions?  
What spell did Moody/Crouch use on Neji? Neji yelling at Filch was funny!  
From your fathful reader  
Hina-Hime  
P.S.You don't have to answer these questions if you don't want to and it would probably give away parts in future chapters!"  
_The memory spell, though I'm sure you've found that out by now. Thank you for the review!

**random nerd**: _"The plural of octopus is octopodes, because it comes from a Greek root. It would only be 'octopi' if it had come from a Latin root."  
_Niiice! XD Smart, too!

**yaoi plz**: _"let harry fuck neji and tenten fuck sakura and then they'll all fuck dumbledore and snape in the ass. Then voldemort and orochimaru will come and fuck sasuke in his sleep and kakashi and jiraiya __will make a novel about it. Then they will get gay on eachother and suck eachoters cum. sweet idea huh? yay for yaoi!"  
_Had this been less crude, I would have considered this for a different story. As you seem to expect this sort of work in a non-M rated, het fanfiction and spell like a fangirl who's not even close to being of a legal age (what are you, eight?), I'd like to say: screw you. Go read porn somewhere else. I don't do story suggestions or prompts anymore, and I certainly wouldn't take on M-rated prompts of the sexual nature, especially when posted on the review board for a T-rated story. Go. Away.

-

**Thinking Corner**

As I have mentioned to a few of you in your review responses, I have been taking some time off writing, mainly as this is my last year in high school and I wished to get back in touch with my social life (may have even explained to a few of you that in those exact words, in fact).

So, after ending my usual lunch activities (sneaking food into the library to I can keep writing; pathetic, I know, but I really was into writing at the time), I started eating outside again in the breezeway. So fun. Especially the Megazord fights in which the lighter people would climb onto the shoulders of the taller/heavier people and wrestle with each other. Then there were the posterboard sword-fights where we just roll up the thin poster boards and whack each other with them. And then they took the breezeway from us—with the construction work, they blocked it off with huge wooden boards. So we found a new outside lunch area near the gym and were forced to cram some 12-odd people at a circular table only designed for an average of 8. It became a bit of a race to get outside and claim a chair, actually.

I took AP exams, nearly failed the Calculus class, took my Biology and Calculus finals just two days ago on Friday. The Cal final exam was, I found, so much easier than the class. I must've nearly failed the class, but the test itself? _Easy!_ To think I nearly killed myself over studying that! Biology, on the other hand... I hadn't slept much that night, and got, like a 55 on it or something. Thank god for Dr. K. I think he messed with my essay part and gave me 15 out of 20 points for that, so I got exactly a 70. Or it might've just been luck. I hated that guy before, but now, I adore him, his receding hairline (which goes to the back of his head and shows evidence of an attempt of a combover), his bad jokes, and his on-and-off bad temper.

Anyway, this year, I've had some fun, went to the movies, started dating the person I liked.

That kinda ended a bit recently, though. Broke up with me a few days ago and then after an hour of moping around, I figured I might as well start writing again. Ironic. Your loss, my gain, eh? Wait, other way around. My loss, your gain. ...It just doesn't sound the same. So I started writing. ...Okay, actually I didn't. Just skimmed through the chapter, decided not to send any more NGTH chapters to Betas, and started responding to reviews.

Anyway, it took me _three days_ to respond to all of those reviews, did you know that? MAN, that was tiring. I usually started around seven or nine and, at one point, stayed up until a little past 3:30. Two and a half hours of sleep—_not_ fun. Of course, I do that pretty regularly. I've a zombie at school recently. Just the mornings though. My zombification is cured with a bag of Skittles, which the school has finally decided to add to the vending machines. Right next to the pre-made popcorn and the pickles. Yum.

So, when I finished doing the review stuff, I figured I'd wait two more days. (emo moment) Five days since I got dumped (/emo moment).

And I should probably mention that I'm getting tired of this story. Seriously tired. Plans for a sequel have been canceled, as have many of my plans for side-stories and mini-missions and all that stuff. I'm going by the book now. Oh yeah! Before I forget, the reason I waited two more days is that I might as well have posted on my birthday anyway. Happy birthday, me! I'm not really able to celebrate it this year anyway, since my brother (a freshman at my school) is studying for finals and I figured now isn't the best time to have a party).

So anyway, happy birthday to me! Oh, and I'll be graduating from high school on the 31st! Four years of hell! FINISHED!

Once again, I am _really_ sorry about my unexpected hiatus. And I really do mean it. I've said 'sorry' a total of one hundred and sixty-seven times in all my reviews, not including the very first one where I gave up on character accents.

Anyway, it's been so long since I've last updated that, believe it or not, I've forgotten a lot of the details and promises I had for this story and to many of you. I am _extremely_ sorry about that. Times three. And now, I don't plan on putting any more effort than necessary into this story. For that, I apologize one last time.

And yes, I do know this chapter is shorter than many of you probably expected. By nine pages, in fact. I found I couldn't even make it near forty this time and had to stop at exactly thirty (thirty, now including the review responses). It's even shorter (24 pages) without the reviews. Sorry.

I ran out of steam.


End file.
